Fernando Alonso cut a positive figure after sampling Aston Martin\u2019s major updates for the first time during Friday practice in Hungary, describing the revised AMR26 as \u201cmuch better\u201d overall.<\/p>\n
Aston Martin<\/a> have made no fewer than 16 changes to their car this weekend, with Team Principal and designer Adrian Newey setting an \u201cimmediate goal\u201d of achieving \u201crespectability\u201d<\/a> amid the squad\u2019s challenging start to 2026.<\/p>\n While Lance Stroll<\/a> was sidelined by an apparent suspension issue in FP1, which also kept him out of FP2, there were more encouraging signs for Alonso<\/a>, who wound up 13th at the end of day\u2019s opening session.<\/p>\n He dropped to 19th in second practice, but lost his best lap time due to a track limits violation, leaving the two-time World Champion optimistic that Aston Martin can make more of an impression when it comes to Qualifying.<\/p>\n \u201cIt was as expected,\u201d Alonso said of his day, and the impact of Aston Martin\u2019s upgrades. \u201cI think it was tricky with the red flag and some of the traffic to maximise the laps, so maybe there\u2019s a little bit more to come from our side, but maybe it\u2019s the same for everybody. Let\u2019s see tomorrow.<\/p>\n \u201cWe concentrated on testing the new parts and trying to understand the set-up direction, which maybe can be very different than what we used to run in the last few events. So, I think there is more potential to unlock hopefully tonight and into tomorrow\u2019s Quali.\u201d<\/p>\n Pushed on whether the car felt better, with some 25 years of F1 experience to draw upon, Alonso continued: \u201cSure, sure. It was much better, much better.<\/p>\n \u201cThe car feels more glued to the ground, easier to drive to an extent, when you are in control of the grip in the corners. A more predictable and easier car, but still a long way to go for us, and obviously this is only the first step.<\/p>\n \u201cWe need to find more performance both on the chassis but also on the engine now \u2013 Zandvoort will be a good test for us with the new engine. Step-by-step, but definitely in the right direction.\u201d<\/p>\n Alonso went on to highlight what has pleased him the most about Aston Martin\u2019s upgrade package, as the team push to turn their season around and get their objective of one day challenging for race wins and world titles back on track.<\/p>\n \u201cIt\u2019s more or less what we expected, which is the most encouraging thing,\u201d he commented. \u201cWhat we thought the new package would do to the car, it actually translates into reality on track, and that kind of correlation is what we need also for next year\u2019s project.<\/p>\n \u201cI think there is a positive atmosphere in the team now.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Fernando Alonso cut a positive figure after sampling Aston Martin\u2019s major updates for the first time during Friday…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":824944,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[441],"tags":[49,48,578,576,577,82],"class_list":["post-824943","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-formula-1","tag-ca","tag-canada","tag-f1","tag-formula-1","tag-formula1","tag-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/824943","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=824943"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/824943\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/824944"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=824943"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=824943"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=824943"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}