‘We are one team’ – Alonso backs Honda despite familiar struggles

Fernando Alonso has been here before – and that’s exactly why his reaction this time feels so different.

As Aston Martin wrestles with a troubled start to the 2026 season, much of it tied to Honda’s faltering power unit, the parallels to Alonso’s bruising McLaren-Honda years from 2015 to 2017 are impossible to ignore.

Back then, frustration spilled over the radio almost every other lap Now, it’s something closer to calm clarity.

“I think I can see things now in a different perspective and a different maturity, but I don’t think that ten years ago things were that dramatic,” recently Alonso told reporters.

“This is Formula 1, a very media-centric sport. When you win a few championships just racing against your team-mate, you are God, and then when you are fighting and having some difficult period, everything is magnified as well.”

From frustration to vindication

A decade ago, Alonso’s criticism of Honda became headline material, most famously with his “GP2 engine” outburst. But the Spaniard now suggests history has quietly shifted in his favour.

“In a way, ten years later, some of the things that people thought about me ten years ago, when we had this situation, now they maybe changed opinion and maybe they think that I was right ten years ago,” he said.

“Because for me the biggest surprise was all these last few years thinking that ten years ago McLaren, Stoffel [Vandoorne] Jenson [Button] and myself — because always people seem to remember only Fernando, but I think Jenson, Stoffel and McLaren, we were saying the same — that project, the power unit, was not mature enough when we started, which everyone seems now to understand.”

Alonso stops short of saying “I told you so” – but the implication lingers. The struggles Aston Martin now faces have cast those McLaren years in a new light, reframing what was once seen as driver frustration into something more grounded in reality.

“But two or three years ago, it seemed that I was crazy, ten years ago, criticising or something like that,” he explained.

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“It was, I think, a few frustrations on the radio, which, yeah, were there, and as a double world champion and a competitive driver, I was not happy with the situation – wow, you know, should I be happy and clapping inside the car about the job?

“So now I think when everyone sees from the outside that situation, and they see the current situation, I think they are a little bit more friendly with us, and they understand the problems more.”

A united front, not a blame game

But if the past explains Alonso’s outlook, the present defines his approach. There is no public finger-pointing this time – only a commitment to dig in and help fix the problem.

“And now what can I do in the team is just work harder, try to help Honda as much as we can, allocating some of the resources that Aston Martin has into the engine, into the power unit, into the vibration problems, into the deployment issues.

“Obviously, we are now in a different world in Formula 1 with all the data available, all the GPS, the analysis that we can have from the other teams, and we can allocate some of those resources to make Honda… or they can focus on one thing, and we can help them in some other areas on the power unit.”

It’s a striking shift – from outspoken critic to collaborative problem-solver. Experience and time, it seems, have reshaped Alonso’s role within a struggling project.

“So, we are one team. As I said, it’s a bumpy start, but I hope it will not last for too long. But it will not be an immediate solution either, so yeah, let’s see,” he concluded.

For Alonso, the scars of the past haven’t disappeared – but they’ve evolved into something more useful: patience, perspective, and a willingness to fight through the storm with a steadier hand.

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