Aston Martin arrived at pre-season testing in Bahrain hoping to begin a new chapter with its first car shaped by the influence of Adrian Newey. However, Alonso made clear the team’s build-up to the season has been far from ideal.

“Definitely we are not in the position we wanted to be. We started on the back foot. Missing Barcelona was a big thing, because it was not only missing the Barcelona test, it was also missing the filming days before,” admitted the Aston Martin driver, as quoted by GPBlog.com.

While Aston Martin did complete a limited amount of mileage in Barcelona (in fact, around 50 laps), Alonso suggested the lack of full and uninterrupted running compared to rivals has hurt the team’s preparations.

Explaining the situation further, the two-time world champion said:

“Some people ran the car on 9 January, so now they've been one month analysing data and solving problems. We didn't run (properly) in Barcelona, we didn't have any filming day before Barcelona or before here, and now for us is really the first test here in Bahrain. So we are finding, you know, small issues here and there every single run, and this is affecting a little bit the program when you are not running clean.

In essence, as the Spaniard described it, Aston Martin is now encountering issues that many of its competitors were able to identify and resolve weeks ago. Instead of focusing purely on performance optimisation, the team is still ironing out operational details and understanding the baseline behaviour of the car.

With limited time before the opening race, Aston Martin faces an intense final phase of preparation if it is to close the gap and deliver on the expectations that surrounded the AMR26 project heading into the new season.