Fernando Alonso points to hidden Aston Martin progress despite summer wait

Fernando Alonso has insisted his Aston Martin team is making good progress in F1, even though there will be no upgrades on its cars until after the summer break. 

Aston Martin is currently last in the constructors' standings with zero points, alongside Cadillac. Its best finish has been 15th from Alonso in Miami and Lance Stroll in Canada. They are behind on countback due to Valtteri Bottas' 13th place for Cadillac in China.

The AMR26 has been hampered by issues with Honda's power unit, although the team has solved the vibration issue, which, in Australia, Adrian Newey claimed could lead to "permanent nerve damage" for Alonso and Stroll.

An added factor for the team in 2026 is that, for the first time, it has created its own gearbox, after previously buying in from Mercedes, in addition to the customer supply of power units.

Alonso felt issues with the gearbox impacted his performance in Miami, but after the weekend in Canada last time out, the two-time champion believes "progress" was made in better extracting performance from the new design.

"We make good starts sometimes, we're completely out of position, and then we slowly fall behind," Alonso told the media, including RacingNews365.

"We lose one position each lap, and then arrive at our natural position at the back, but this is the situation, and it will be like this until after the summer.

"So we accept it, and we answer the same questions every weekend, but we are relaxed with this. 

"There is progress every time we hit the track; there are new things on the car, on the engine, on the settings, and on the gearbox from Miami [to Canada], and we improved a lot the gearbox, the gear sync, the down-shifting.

"How that translates into lap-time is difficult to quantify, but we were definitely faster than in Miami with exactly the same car, just because we fine-tune things.

"So I expect a lot of small things happening between here and Monaco, and hopefully another step forward, but the fundamental problem and the three seconds of pace will have to come from the power of the engine and the aero package, and that will only come in the second part of the year."