Racing
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Aston Martin have confirmed that Jak Crawford will replace Fernando Alonso in Free Practice 1 at the Belgian Grand Prix, using the team’s third rookie session of the 2026 season and completing Alonso’s final required FP1 handover of the year.
Crawford’s run at Spa will be his third practice appearance for Aston Martin this season after earlier outings in Japan, when he drove Alonso’s car, and Austria, when he stood in for Lance Stroll. With each team required to complete four rookie practice sessions across the campaign, Aston Martin will still have one more to schedule later in the year.
That makes Spa a holding-pattern Friday for Alonso one race before the team’s much-anticipated upgrade package arrives in Hungary. At the Hungaroring, Aston Martin is planning a broad set of changes to the AMR26, including aerodynamic updates and weight reduction, with further Honda power-unit upgrades expected for the Dutch Grand Prix.
Alonso has already cautioned that the Hungary package will not be enough on its own to turn Aston Martin’s season around. He said the team understood after Bahrain that the car was falling short in several areas and needed a wider reset before a meaningful package could be delivered.
“The fans want to see Aston Martin winning races and fighting for the championship, but this year, any update and any evolution will never be enough,” Alonso said. “We will improve, but win races? Not this year.”
He described the Hungary changes as the start of a longer recovery plan rather than a fix in themselves, with the key objective being to prove the team has correctly identified the car’s weaknesses, especially on the aerodynamic side, and can finally begin to unlock more of its potential.
That leaves Belgium as a transitional weekend for Aston Martin. Alonso will begin his running only in FP2 on Friday, while the more meaningful judgment on whether the team can change its trajectory has effectively been pushed back to the Hungaroring.