Fernando Alonso gives grim Aston Martin F1 update: 'We're six months behind'

Aston Martin

Fernando Alonso gives grim Aston Martin F1 update: 'We're six months behind'

Fernando Alonso wants to be challenging for podiums once more

Sam Cook Digital Journalist

Sports Journalist who has been covering motorsport since 2023

Monday 27 July 2026 17:29

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Fernando Alonso has issued a damning statement about Aston Martin's 2026 season, despite having brought a plethora of upgrades to the Hungarian Grand Prix.

The Silverstone-based outfit have only scored one point from the opening 11 grand prix weekends of the season, and their drivers Alonso and Lance Stroll have spent most of 2026 season occupying the back row.

They've struggled with reliability issues as well as performance struggles, and the best case scenario for the two drivers has often been to finish ahead of the Cadillacs.

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But at the Hungarian Grand Prix, Aston Martin brought a whopping 16 upgrades to their AMR26, with design legend Adrian Newey having been working hard on his chassis design for much of this year.

That allowed Alonso to get out of Q1 for the first time this season during Hungarian GP qualifying, while the two drivers finished 13th and 14th respectively during the grand prix.

While Alonso was happy with the progress that has been made with the raft of upgrades, he has admitted that the team are 'six months behind' their midfield rivals in the development race, and suggested that they're going to struggle to become a regular points-scoring team in 2026.

Aston Martin now 'understand' 2026 problems

Aston Martin have more upgrades coming to their chassis at the upcoming Italian and Azerbaijan Grands Prix, as confirmed by their team principal Adrian Newey.

As well as this, Honda are bringing more upgrades to the team's power unit at the Dutch GP, the first race after the summer break.

Now, Alonso has revealed that the team are now learning about the problems they had earlier in the year, but has tempered expectations for the rest of 2026.

"The best news is that it seems the problems have been understood, and now we just need time to put everything in place," he told Spanish publication AS. "This year has started so badly, and it's about learning, not so much about results,”

"When you start with such a huge deficit in the engine and chassis, you're worried. You're so far behind that you don't really know where the problem lies. Now, with this upgrade, we can finally calculate exactly how much we're lacking in the chassis and engine.

"Until now, the situation was a bit dramatic, because we were missing countless tenths of a second in both areas.

"Now we know exactly what needs to be done. I think we also know which direction to take the car, because we’ve proven that this direction works much better on the track. The thing is, everyone else has been using this direction since January, and we’re starting in July.

"We’re six months behind, and now we have to win the development race off the track."

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F1 Aston Martin Adrian Newey Fernando Alonso Lance Stroll Hungarian Grand Prix