Fernando Alonso was surprisingly positive following qualifying for the Austrian Grand Prix, despite his Aston Martin Formula 1 squad once again finishing last.
The Silverstone outfit will occupy the back row for the third, consecutive race with Alonso qualifying 21st at the Red Bull Ring on Saturday ahead of stablemate Lance Stroll.
It continued a well-documented horrible start to 2026 for Aston and on paper Austria was as bad as it got, holding a significant deficit to the rest of the field despite a very short lap.
Alonso and Stroll were 2.859s and 3.280s off Kimi Antonelli’s Q1 benchmark respectively, but more crucially, 0.997s and 1.418s behind the quickest Cadillac of Sergio Perez in 19th.
But that was thanks to upgrades for F1’s debutant outfit this weekend, whereas Aston is holding off on updates until later in the summer, meaning the lap times will not change any time soon.
So Alonso has resorted to public words of encouragement, insisting over team radio post-qualifying that “we’re getting closer” due to the ongoing work back at the factory.
Fernando Alonso, Aston Martin Racing
Photo by: Alastair Staley / LAT Images via Getty Images
“You see, I'm always positive," Alonso laughed. “Inside the team we face some challenges this weekend: maybe with the altitude, a different track, very thirsty on energy.
“So since FP1 I think we made huge steps on drivability, on gearbox, downshift, upshift and energy consistency.
“The deployment has been a little bit inconsistent for the first part of the year, every lap you have a different speed on the straights and approaching the corners.
“I think we put a lot of emphasis here to improve that. It was the first quali of the year that I had the same deployment all three laps and that allowed me to push the limits in the corner, because I knew the approaching speed to the next corner.”
It is therefore about the small steps, and Alonso took encouragement from his qualifying deficit actually being less than in all three practice sessions, where he was over three seconds behind.
Fernando Alonso, Aston Martin Racing
Photo by: Alastair Staley / LAT Images via Getty Images
“I don't know, I think the steps we did since FP1 to quali were very encouraging,” added Alonso. “We are at the back of the grid. Even Cadillac, our closest rival, made a big step here with upgrades. But the team is still working like if we were fighting for points or podiums. So behind the scenes this is important.
“It's very difficult to get motivated when you are last every weekend. But on the team no one is giving up and they are working to improve the car every session. So, from the driver's point of view it gives you that motivation as well to not give up because they are not giving up.
“So that's probably what I meant today, because it was positive to see the improvements that we were able to make from FP1 to quali.”
What’s being witnessed from Alonso is certainly a different approach to when he faced a similar situation at McLaren in 2015, when he labelled his Honda power unit as “GP2” level while racing in Japan.
It would be very easy for himself and Stroll to express similar frustrations at the current situation, again with a Honda engine, but instead they are just appreciative of the work going on.
“As I said, it's difficult to motivate the 1000 people to work and to find performance when every weekend you seem further behind. But we stay united, everyone is working flat out,” said the two-time F1 champion.
“They are inspiring us, drivers, that we are not seeing all the progress because we only feel the bad news every time we see the time lap.
“But when you see the garage, when you see the meetings, the debriefs, the factory, you wonder how much you need to push and how much you need to improve as well, because they are still at a very high level, even if the result doesn't show that.
“So you need to keep up to that level and you need to perform at your maximum.”
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Originally published by motorsport.com —
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