Fernando Alonso is keeping it real in the wake of Aston Martin’s dismal week of pre-season testing in Bahrain, but nevertheless insists that the team’s AMR26 is so wildly unoptimized that massive chunks of time are simply waiting to be “unlocked”.
The first Aston Martin car shaped under the guidance of design legend Adrian Newey was meant to signal a technical rebirth. Instead, its early mileage has produced more suspicion than celebration.
Lance Stroll’s blunt declaration that the new machine was “four to five second off the pace” landed like a thunderclap, instantly reframing the narrative from ambition to damage limitation.
Behind the scenes, explanations piled up. The car has been plagued by "last-minute" completions while Honda’s new-generation power unit has introduced its own set of challenges.
Yet as scrutiny intensifies, Alonso has positioned himself as the steady voice amid rising doubt. Whether it’s genuine optimism, or a calculated smokescreen to hide a looming disaster, only time will tell.
When pressed on his teammate’s depressing comments and on the team's true standing, Alonso played his cards close to his chest.
“I think Lance said that because in Barcelona, we were four-and-a-half [seconds off], and in the first two days [of Bahrain testing], we were like four-and-a-half or five.
“So it seemed like a trend in the last three days,” he told reporters.
Still, Alonso pointed to inconsistency as both problem and potential.
“But I don’t know. I did a lap yesterday that I went off in Turn 4, and then from that point to the finish line I improved eight tenths,” he explained.
“So it’s just to give you the number of errors that there are in every lap we are doing now.”
According to Alonso, the AMR26 is currently a volatile beast where “there are laps that we are eight tenths up and down by changing one setting.”
He insists the deficit isn't about incremental gains.
“So it’s not that we need to find two tenths. When we optimise, maybe we unlock seconds,” he said. “So let’s hope next week we have a better picture.
“As I said, we are realistic. We will not be the fastest in Melbourne. We started on the slow side and on the back foot, but difficult to guess exactly where.”
For Alonso, hope remains – though in Bahrain’s fading twilight, it sounded suspiciously like calculated restraint rather than certainty.
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