Fernando Alonso Exposes ‘Big Reason’ Behind Aston Martin’s 2026 Pre-Season Struggles

Fernando Alonso has accepted the difficult situation Aston Martin is in currently as they hope to perform better over the second pre-season test.

Fernando Alonso Exposes ‘Big Reason’ Behind Aston Martin’s 2026 Pre-Season Struggles

Fernando Alonso (via F1)

Aston Martin raked in a Honda partnership for the power units for the 2026 season. They also signed Adrian Newey as the Chief Designer and ultimately the team principal to lead them to success under the new regulations. However, Fernando Alonso and Lance Stroll scored disappointing performances during the pre-season test. Now, Alonso opens up on the reasons behind the apparent struggle.

Aston Martin was unable to perform well over the pre-season test, and they tallied the least amount of laps run as compared to any other team on the grid. They also missed a majority of the private testing in Barcelona. As such, the team must desperately work on their form if they want to start the season on the right note. Fernando Alonso, who has great faith in the team’s leadership, has revealed the primary concern with their running so far.

Fernando Alonso spoke candidly about Aston Martin’s form leading up to the 2026 season. Alonso did not sugarcoat the situation and accepted that the team was not in the position that they wished to be. He continued that the Silverstone-based constructor started on the backfoot. Further, the two-time champion revealed that missing the private testing in Barcelona was a big deal to them, and they lost crucial track time.

Definitely, we are not in the position we wanted to be, and we started on the back foot, missing Barcelona was a big thing, because we not only missed Barcelona, but also the filming days before, and [Audi] ran its car on January 9th.

Fernando Alonso said, as reported by RacingNews365.

Alonso continued that the team lost not only the testing time in Barcelona, but also the filming time right before that. Meanwhile, the likes of Audi and other teams were right on schedule and had trouble-free running. The Asturian wasn’t delighted with the fact that the rivals had over a month of analyzing things in their cars while Aston Martin’s first running of the car was in the pre-season test.

So they’ve now had one month analysing data and solving problems, this sensor here, that temperature there, and we didn’t run in Barcelona, we didn’t have any filming days and here and now for us is the first test in Bahrain.

Fernando Alonso added.

Fernando Alonso reveals factors “affecting his programme” during the pre-season test

Given the fact that Aston Martin had much less preparation leading up to the pre-season test, it was expected that they faced many issues over the Bahrain testing. Fernando Alonso couldn’t give it his all and failed under the pressure of the new regulations. As such, Alonso opened up on the factors that affected his run in Bahrain and ultimately hindered progress for the squad.

Fernando Alonso with Adrian Newey (via motorsport.com)
Fernando Alonso with Adrian Newey (via motorsport.com)

Fernando Alonso reckoned that he was facing many minor issues in the car because of a lack of testing prior to the pre-season test. He continued that the setup was not progressing either because he could not lodge back-to-back laps on track. Alonso revealed that the other teams were able to work on the smaller issues during the filming days or the private testing, something which Aston Martin did not do at all.

So we are finding small issues here and there on every single run, and this is affecting the programme. When you are not running cleanly run after run, it is not progressing the setup. The other teams found these difficulties on the filming days or in the first couple of days in Barcelona, and we are finding them now, unfortunately.

Fernando Alonso noted.

The 2026 season is less than a month away and a majority of the teams have started with the development already. Many of them are looking forward to the challenge. But, the new regulations are certainly complex and will take time to get used to. For now, Aston Martin has three more days of the pre-season test where they can get themselves prepared for the upcoming challenge.

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