Racing
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Fernando Alonso will start last for the Dutch Grand Prix Sprint after Aston Martin said his SQ1 run at Zandvoort was compromised by a rear-wing straight-line mode failure and broader driveability problems, leaving the result as a poor read on the team’s updated package.
Aston Martin arrived at the weekend with Honda’s first power unit upgrade of the season, a change the team had been waiting on as it tried to cut into the gap to its rivals. There had been some encouragement earlier on Friday too. Alonso was 12th in Free Practice 1 and said the car felt like a step forward, building on the aerodynamic changes the team introduced in Hungary.
That promise disappeared in Sprint qualifying. Aston Martin confirmed after the session that the straight-line mode on Alonso’s AMR26 was not working, which meant he could not use a key tool for speed on the straights. Alonso also said the car had engine-related braking and driveability issues that made it hard to stop properly.
Speaking to F1TV after Sprint qualifying, Fernando Alonso, Aston Martin driver, said: “The free practice was more or less okay but in qualifying we had problems on the engine, driveability was pushing on the braking. It was difficult to stop the car sometimes because the engine I think was over delivering.” He added: “Apparently the SLM didn’t work for me so I could not open the rear wing. So a combination of both made the laps very tricky.”
His session was damaged further on the first serious attempt, when he locked up at Turn 1 and went off through the escape road. With that lap compromised, Alonso needed to recover on his second run while still carrying the straight-line mode problem, and he could not find enough time to escape SQ1.
Alonso said the upgraded package still showed signs of promise despite the result. “Free practice felt okay and I felt a step forward,” he said. “It’s very early days and probably it’s a little bit immature with all the controls.” On a Sprint weekend, he added, Aston Martin does not have the usual three practice sessions to settle everything before qualifying.
The problems were not limited to one side of the garage. Lance Stroll also fell in SQ1 and will start 19th after reporting handling issues and other things that “did not work quite right.” He said the team would go through the data overnight and try to make improvements for Saturday.
With both cars out in the first phase, the Sprint now becomes Aston Martin’s first real competitive test of whether the encouraging signs from FP1 and the new Honda-updated package can be turned into usable performance under race conditions.