Fernando Alonso tipped to 'bubble over' in dire Aston Martin situation

Fernando Alonso has been backed to again 'emotionally bubble over' if Aston Martin fails to get on top of the issues that led to a wretched pre-season.

Despite unveiling an aggressive-looking car designed by team principal Adrian Newey, its performance on track ultimately flattered to deceive, with the AMR26 predominantly let down by the Honda power unit.

On the penultimate day of testing of the six overall in Bahrain, the car was struck by a technical gremlin that consigned it to the garage for the remainder of the session.

Despite overnight attempts to address the problem, Lance Stroll conducted no more than six in-and-out laps on the final day, leaving the team firmly entrenched at the bottom of the lap-count chart with just 329.

Honda has since diagnosed the problem as "abnormal vibrations" that then impacted the battery. The Japanese manufacturer is currently in the process of "implementing countermeasures", albeit with no guarantees of a fix for this weekend's season-opening Australian Grand Prix.

As to how Alonso will fare and react remains to be seen if Aston Martin finds itself languishing towards the back of the field early on, and the two-time F1 champion is not getting any younger as he will be 45 this year.

Whilst age has never been a barrier to his talent or ambition, he may yet question how much longer he wants to continue if the dream move to Aston Martin he instigated three years ago fails to yield the third world title he has longed for.

Assessing how Alonso will cope this year, speaking exclusively to RacingNews365, former F1 driver and Sky Sports F1 analyst Anthony Davidson said: "They're in a technically challenging position right now, as a whole collective.

"Fernando is very much part of that team, and will be working in the background, trying to get things up to speed, quite literally, and [for the car] to be more reliable.

"But he's not blessed with a huge amount of time on his side anymore, and as a driver that's been there and done it, it all might become too frustrating, perhaps.

"But he's a hard worker, and I'm sure he wants, more than anybody, for this to succeed as an operation, and on paper, you'd have to say that all the ingredients are there.

"So give it time, and I'm convinced that it will come good, but it comes back to my first point. Time isn't really on his side."

Indicating that Alonso may again let his emotions get the better of him, Davidson added: "Let's watch this with interest.

"I'm sure things might bubble over this year for him, emotionally, and we've seen it in the past. I wouldn't be surprised if it were to happen again, because he's just that kind of passionate character."