Fernando Alonso retired from F1 Canada to “stop the pain” from seat issue

Fernando Alonso says he retired from the Formula 1 Canadian Grand Prix to “stop the pain” after struggling with a seat issue in his Aston Martin.

The double world champion had already experienced the issue in the Saturday sprint, in which he also retired.

The team tried to address the problem for the main race, but without success.

With little chance of making progress due to rain or safety cars, Fernando Alonso retired after completing 23 laps.

“We had this seat issue where I feel more and more uncomfortable with the laps,” he said when asked about the problem by Crash.net.

“The position doesn't feel the right one, and yeah, we were obviously out of the points, quite far from the points, and no threat of rain anymore. So we decided to stop the pain.”

He added: “We tried to modify a few things last night, didn't work, so we try to make a new one for Monaco.”

Aston Martin's chief trackside officer Mike Krack confirmed that the seat was an ongoing issue.

“He has been uncomfortable for a while,” said Krack.

“And never to the point where it was really like a showstopper, but it's like a pressure point, you feel it gets worse and worse, and I think we need to reconsider a little bit the positioning.

“You try with these cars to be as low as you can, and when you look at how the drivers used to sit over the last years, it goes more and more and more into lying positions.

“We need to check – maybe we have done a step too far, but it's something we need to check.

“I think we need to reconsider, maybe a little bit, going back to how we have been in the past.”

Meanwhile, Alonso did at least have some fun in the early laps of the Montreal race on soft tyres, making a good start and taking advantage of the cars on inters diving into the pits.

He was up to 10th and in the points for the first time in 2026 by lap three, holding the position for four laps before falling back.

“It was a coincidence with the soft tyre,” he said. “And then some people on inters, and taking some extra risk in the first two corners – some of the people cannot afford to because they are in the points and they are in a strong position, but yeah, I could take more risk.

He added: “The same as has been always.

“We do good starts, sometimes, we're completely out of position, and then we slowly fall behind, we lose one position each lap, and then you arrive to your natural position at the back, but this is the situation, and it be like this until after summer.

“So we accept it, and we answer the same questions every weekend, but we are relaxed with this.”

He acknowledged that Montreal did see some improvements, especially on the gearbox side.

“There is progress always,” he said.

“Every time we hit the track, there are some new things on the car, and on the engine, on the settings, on the gearbox.

“From Miami to here, we improved a lot the gearbox, the gear sync, the downshifting.

“How that translates into lap time is difficult to quantify, but definitely we were faster here than Miami with exactly the same car, just because we fine-tuned things.

“So I expect a lot of a lot of small things happening between here and Monaco, and hopefully another step forward, but the fundamental problem and the three seconds of the pace will have to come from the power of the engine and from the aero package, and that will only come in the second part of the year.”