The main problem for the team are severe vibrations that largely affect the battery pack, leading to multiple problems across the pre-season testing and first couple of races of the season. But there have been clear signs of progress, mainly visible at last race in Japan where Alonso was able to finish the race. “We have been running without too many issues for the last two weekends,” he admitted over the Japanese Grand Prix. It was for the first time in this season that Aston Martin completed full race distance.

As Honda’s Koji Watanabe revealed in Suzuka in Japan, the extent of vibrations from its power unit is within design parameters when on the test bench, but once mated to the Aston Martin AMR26, it is encountering far greater levels of vibration that have caused severe reliability issues.

In spite of all the problems Alonso is still optimistic that things will turn around, even though their biggest accomplishment so far is a finished race: “Obviously, in terms of performance, we are at the back. So, yeah, you don’t find any satisfaction when you are not competitive. But we try to stay together, to stay strong, and give time to both factories to fix the situation. They are working flat out. There are a couple of improvements, a couple of ideas.”

He also added that progress in Formula 1 doesn’t happen over night and that they have to spend few months with the current car. “We will not change too many things on this car if we know that it will change completely in a few months’ time. So that’s the situation we have,” he claimed.

Alonso also pointed out the example of McLaren, the Constructors’ Champions of last two years, who were suffering eliminations in the first parts of qualifying in 2023 and suggested that the second half of the season could look very different.