Fernando Alonso‘s numbers tell the story bluntly enough: he qualified 22nd at the Barcelona-Catalunya Grand Prix — last, slower than both Cadillacs, more than four seconds from pole and behind his own team-mate for the first time in 42 events.
Then Aston Martin changed several components of Alonso’s power unit overnight, and he started Sunday’s race from the pitlane rather than the grid. A battery failure ended his afternoon early.
It was, by most measures, the low point of a season that has been almost nothing but low points for the two-time champion and his team. The fact that it happened at Barcelona, the circuit Alonso has called home for a career spanning a quarter-century of Formula 1, added insult to injury.
On Thursday of race week, he had told the media this was “probably my last Barcelona race in Formula 1“, given that the is track rotating off the calendar after 2026.
By Sunday evening, the circuit had given him nothing to remember except exhaustion and the warmth from his loyal fans.
“We knew we have the worst car and the worst engine,” Alonso said after qualifying, with the flat delivery of a man who has said the same thing so many times the words have lost their shock value.
“We’ve been very clear in every race so far that we have to work.”
It’s hard to believe that Aston Martin‘s situation has come to this, because less than 12 months ago, the logic of the team’s 2026 project was coherent, even compelling, and quite convincing given all its resources and ambitions.
The bet
Three pillars underpinned the optimism from Aston as it geared up to become a real contender.
The first was Adrian Newey, recruited from Red Bull in what represented the most significant individual signing in the team’s history.
The second was Honda, whose works partnership promised a power unit built specifically for the new formula, developed exclusively for Aston Martin.
The third was the regulations themselves – a wholesale reset of both the chassis and power unit rules that was supposed to revamp the competitive order and give ambitious teams a genuine chance to compete from the start. And few teams were more ambitious than Aston Martin.
Alonso had never qualified last for his home race before
Aston Martin
The team bet heavily on all three converging. The investment in infrastructure at Silverstone had already been huge. Newey’s presence added credibility to the technical operation. And Honda, whose engine programme had been running for years as a successful partner to Red Bull, was expected to give the team a meaningful power advantage, or at least parity.
As it has now been well documented, none of it has worked. Not yet, at least, and possibly not for some time.
Where the pillars cracked
The Honda partnership has been the most visible and most damaging failure, but as the season has evolved, it’s become clear that the Japanese power unit is far from the only culprit.
From the first pre-season test in Bahrain, the AMR26 suffered reliability problems that suggested deep integration issues between the power unit and the rest of the car.
Those problems didn’t resolve themselves as the season progressed.
In Barcelona, Alonso described a gearbox-power unit interface that was still fundamentally broken: “In some corners it felt like pulling a handbrake, complete rear locking with both rear wheels fully locked.
“In other corners, I had what felt like half-throttle while braking, and then you just go straight on. So every lap is a bit of a lottery at the moment.”
Those are not vague complaints about a car that lacks pace, but rather precise mechanical failures – a gearbox and a power unit that are not talking to each other properly – and they point to problems that cannot be fixed with a new front wing or an updated diffuser.
Monaco was a highlight with one point scored
Despite Newey’s input, the aerodynamic picture is no more encouraging.
Barcelona, with its mixture of high-speed sections demanding downforce and stability, is among the most diagnostic circuits on the calendar, and Aston Martin had nowhere to hide.
Both Alonso and Lance Stroll were outpaced by a full second by Valtteri Bottas in the Cadillac, the new team with none of Aston Martin‘s resources, none of its experience and none of its star signings.
No disrespect to Cadillac, which has been doing a solid job as it gets to grips with F1, but for Aston, that was an embarrassing display.
As for Newey, the timeline defence only stretches so far. He joined Aston Martin in early 2025, with the 2026 regulations already well established and more than a year of development runway ahead.
This wasn’t a rescue job mid-cycle. The AMR26 was the car he was recruited to help shape, the project that justified the blockbuster move from Red Bull.
Whatever mitigation exists for a designer needing time to impose his vision on an organisation, it does not fully apply here.
The AMR26 is, to a meaningful degree, his car, and it is the slowest on the grid.
Alonso’s position
What makes Barcelona particularly difficult to absorb is what it has cost Alonso personally.
Alonso’s future remains unknown for now
Aston Martin
The Spaniard said last weekend was probably his final F1 race in Barcelona, hinting at retirement either this year or the next, as the circuit will be absent from the calendar in 2027 before it returns in 2028.
At 44 years old, Alonso’s window to win again is not infinite.
His comments in Barcelona offered the same weary precision he has deployed at every race since Melbourne, and the exhaustion in that repetition is not theatrical anymore, regardless of his fondness for hyperbole.
It all sounded like the exhaustion of a man who is growing tired of watching nothing change.
The fans gave him something, at least. The Barcelona grandstands were full of the kind of noise only a home crowd can generate, and Alonso — as he always does — drew energy from it even when the car gave him none in return.
“The fans were incredible all weekend and it was a very good and very emotional feeling for me, possible in my last race in Barcelona,” he said. “I enjoyed every minute out of the cockpit. Unfortunately, I didn’t give them what we deserved.”
The hope
Aston Martin’s plan to salvage 2026 is a heavily revised car and power unit in the second half of the season.
“We have hopes for the second part of the year with improvements to be a little more competitive, but we need to see some results as well,” Alonso said. “At some point we need to see that some improvements make the car faster.
“The last few years, some of the upgrades didn’t make the car really fast as we wanted.”
His last comment doesn’t sound exactly like a complaint or like despair, but it also registers as something more than a throwaway caveat.
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Aston’s decline has been steep and sustained.
In 2023, Alonso arrived at Aston Martin and immediately made an impression – eight podiums across the season, including a remarkable run of six consecutive top-three finishes early in the year.
The car was genuinely competitive, the team was progressing, and for a brief period, Aston Martin looked like a future contender.
Then the trajectory reversed.
The AMR24 fell away as rivals found more development pace, and what had looked like momentum became stagnation.
The 2025 car offered no recovery, and now the AMR26, built for a new formula specifically designed to reset the order, has not only failed to deliver a return to competitiveness, but has made the team the slowest of all.
In those three years, Aston Martin has gone from podium challenger to the back of the grid, so it would be no wonder if Alonso’s hopes for the second half of 2026 are not as high as the team’s resources should warrant.
