Fernando Alonso relieved after avoiding 'nasty surprise' from Aston Martin upgrade

Fernando Alonso has expressed his relief at discovering any "nasty surprises" from Aston Martin's B-spec car after qualifying for the Hungarian Grand Prix.

Alonso escaped Q1 for the first time in 2026 in the heavily upgraded machine, and although he was then eliminated in Q2, he was 0.083s from out-qualifying the Haas of Esteban Ocon on pure pace. 

The upgrades to the AMR26 are so vast that only the front suspension, engine, and gearbox have carried over from Belgium, with the car taking a big leap forward in terms of competitiveness. 

Further new parts are planned for later in the season, with Honda also set to deploy a new power unit at the Dutch GP following the summer break, as Alonso gave a positive first impression of the Adrian Newey-designed machine. 

"When you bring a nearly new car, you always believe that it is important to have the correlation right, and you deliver what you expect to deliver," Alonso told media, including RacingNews365. 

"So even if it's what we expected, I think it was important to have it and not have a nasty surprise.

"We're still not on top of the package now in qualifying; we again learnt something on the balance of the car, so if we had another session, I think we will change the setup again, and we would go with a different setup. 

"So I think it's still early days, but there is more potential to unlock in the car, but that's normal when you have such a big package.

"The way the car drives, we just gain load and overall grip in the corners, and it is maybe a little bit more consistent to drive. So corner by corner, at the entry, middle, and exit of the corner, the car is a little bit more forgiving, a little bit easier to drive. 

"The previous car we had, I think it was trickier to drive."