The Aston Martin change leaving Fernando Alonso hopeful for F1 2026

Fernando Alonso is more optimistic about Aston Martin’s prospects for F1 2026, declaring the team can now “trust” their tools.

Ever since making a strong start to the 2023 season, Aston Martin have slid backwards and have been hampered by development frustrations in their quest to add more performance to their car.

Aston Martin have endured an inconsistent 2025 campaign but strong performances at the Hungarian and Dutch grands prix led to back-to-back double points appearances.

Those results have lifted Aston Martin up to sixth in the constructors’ championship after making a sluggish start to the season.

Two-time world champion Alonso is confident Aston Martin are making progress with improving the correlation issues which have afflicted the team in recent times.

Asked if Aston Martin’s recent gains give him even more hope for 2026, Alonso replied: “Yeah, definitely.

“I think to trust the tools that we have in the factory and bring things to the track that actually deliver what was expected from them is obviously a very good thing.

“We didn’t have that in 2023 and in 2024. So yeah, it’s good to go back to a more normal factory-track kind of correlation and develop the 2026 car next winter knowing that the tools are correct.”

Upon his arrival at Silverstone, legendary designer Adrian Newey flagged that some of Aston Martin’s tools, including the driver in the loop simulator, were “weak”.

"It needs a lot of work because it's not correlating at all at the moment, which is a fundamental research tool. Not having that is a limitation,” Newey said at the Monaco Grand Prix back in May.

“But we've just got to work around it in the meantime and then sort out a plan to get it to where it needs to be. But that's probably a two-year project in truth.

“It is a handicap, but difficult to say how much. Driver in the loop simulators are used in two ways.

“One as a research tool, when you're looking at how you're going to design the following year's car, and how you're going to put all the tools together to better model it.

“Then the other of course is how you develop the set-up of the car, typically, especially for given race weekends.

“So we're going to be a bit blind on that for some time. We have just got to try to use experience and best judgement. How successful that will be, time will tell.”

But based on Alonso’s latest comments, it seems Aston Martin have made some encouraging progress in this area on the eve of F1’s looming rules revolution.

Where else will Aston Martin be strong?

Alonso is hopeful Aston Martin can have further strong weekends across the remaining eight rounds to end a largely frustrating season on a positive note.

“I think we have a couple of places that we think are more similar to Budapest and Zandvoort. Maybe Singapore can be one of those, maybe Brazil,” the Spaniard added.

“But, you know, we’ve been surprised a little bit – sometimes negatively surprised, sometimes positively – so we are not really putting all the hopes in one or two races.

“We will go every weekend to give our maximum, even if it seems difficult. And yeah, we’ll see in Abu Dhabi how many points and which constructor position we have at the end.”