Few drivers relish a stubborn car the way Fernando Alonso does, but the two-time world champion looked thoroughly unconvinced by his Aston Martin after a bruising Friday in Monaco. He had hoped the slow, twisting streets might suit the package; instead they laid bare a machine that resisted him through almost every corner.
"It was a difficult day," Alonso said. "Probably we were expecting a little bit more, a little bit easier around here. But unfortunately we found a tricky car to drive. The upshifts and downshifts are very tricky, and in Monaco you need that perfection into the corner, with the walls very close. So there is some work to do tonight."
The heart of the issue lay in the driveability of Formula 1's intricate 2026 power units — a complaint echoed up and down the grid as the field beds in with the new rules. For Aston Martin the trouble was magnified by a chassis lacking front-end bite, a crippling shortfall on a track that lives or dies on turn-in confidence.
Alonso was forensic about where the time had vanished. "It's very clear we need to improve the engine response and the engine behaviour around the downshifts, the upshifts and this energy recovery," he said. "We have this complex system that recharges when we brake, and it has to interact with the downshifts and the way you approach the corners. On the chassis side, I think we were missing a lot of front end today, so we will do changes tonight to improve the front end and the front grip."
This year's cars are lighter, shorter and ten centimetres slimmer than their forebears, traits that leave them livelier and harder to pin down — hardly ideal on a circuit lined with unforgiving barriers. Alonso signalled the team would not be making cautious tweaks, vowing wholesale overnight changes before final practice and qualifying.
At least one front had been settled. Alonso had arrived at the circuit as early as Tuesday to fine-tune his seating position, and reverting to his 2025 setup finally delivered the comfort he wanted.
"Good setup. I went back to my 2025 seat position, exactly the same, so I felt perfectly fine today," he said. "Now let's focus on the performance."
With the cockpit sorted, the onus falls on the engineers. Around Monaco, where Saturday so often decides Sunday, Alonso knows a single faultless lap can salvage a weekend that looked lost on Friday — provided his team hands him a car he can finally trust.
