Fernando Alonso delivered to Aston Martin its best result of the 2026 season in Sepang, and yet the veteran Spaniard expected more from his AMR26 in terms of its race pace.
Alonso concluded his Bahrain Grand Prix in eighth position, giving Aston Martin its third top-ten finish of the year. For once, the 46-year-old was able to mix it with the top mid-field runners rather than watch them disappear into the distance.
The signs had already appeared in qualifying, where Alonso and Lance Stroll both reached Q2 to secure 12th and 14th on the grid. However, Alonso’s race became far more complicated after the team’s slick-tyre gamble failed in the wet conditions, dropping him to 17th.
A Safety Car then reset the proceedings, allowing the Spaniard to recover ground rapidly. He passed Sergio Perez and Alex Albon almost immediately before continuing his charge after his second pit stop, eventually breaking into the top ten.
His early pace had even given him a glimpse of something Aston Martin has rarely enjoyed this season: genuine competitiveness.
“We were even faster than the Ferraris, overtook Hamilton, I was pulling away from him, so at that point I thought, ‘OK, this is going well’,” Alonso told Sky Sports F1, recalling his early battle with Lewis Hamilton.
“But obviously, we were very slow with the slick, and thanks to the safety car, everything regrouped and started a new race from that point onwards.
“Happy for the team. There are not many weekends where we can score points, and in those weekends we cannot have any mistakes and we cannot lose the opportunity. We executed well today, so I'm happy for the team, for the points.”
Yet eighth place did not completely satisfy Alonso.
Eighth was good. The pace could have been better
The two-time world champion admitted he had expected more from the AMR26 once the race settled down. Persistent oversteer left him fighting the car, and a front-wing adjustment failed to cure the problem.
“To be honest, I expected a little bit more from our race pace,” he admitted.
“We were doing OK, but I had a lot of oversteer. We made a small adjustment to the front wing, but it didn’t really fix it. So I’m happy with the result, but we still have work to do.”
Alonso then had to call upon all his racecraft to keep a recovering Lando Norris behind him during the closing laps. The Aston Martin driver spotted an opportunity when Norris became embroiled in traffic and had to replenish his battery deployment.
“When you get involved in battles, like Lando did with Nico [Hulkenberg], I think they used up their battery and then he spent two laps recharging it,” he explained.
“I had a full battery for those two laps and I was using it on the straights. So I think these are also circumstances that can help you or hurt you if you manage to understand them and read them during the race.”
Read also: ‘Horrible’ and ‘unacceptable’: F1 drivers blast Sepang software chaosThe performance was nevertheless a welcome change after Aston Martin’s struggles at recent circuits, with Alonso suggesting Sepang may simply have suited the AMR26 better than some of the tracks that exposed its weaknesses.
“And then there are some other weeks that we are very uncompetitive and we have to accept it,” he explained.
That makes Singapore the next intriguing test. Alonso believes the track should, at least on paper, suit Aston Martin even better than Sepang.
For a team still searching for consistency, eighth place was a welcome reward. Alonso, however, has already made it clear he wants more than occasional points: he wants to understand why they are possible in the first place.
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