Fernando Alonso arrived at Zandvoort hoping Honda’s much-anticipated new power unit would help Aston Martin build on its first glimmer of progress in Hungary.
Instead, the upgrade quickly became an unwelcome suspect in a miserable Sprint qualifying session, with Alonso left wondering whether the team has traded one set of problems for another.
After Aston Martin’s chassis upgrade helped the Spaniard escape Q1 for the first time all season in Hungary, expectations were raised once again for the Dutch weekend.
Yet the Sprint qualifying session delivered a stark reality check, with Alonso qualifying last after a combination of engine drivability problems and a malfunctioning rear-wing system left him unable to make meaningful progress.
Honda upgrade creates fresh headache
Alonso said the underlying pace had looked more promising in practice, only for the situation to unravel once qualifying began.
"Free practice was more or less ok, but in qualifying, we had problems on the engine drivability," the F1 veteran explained.
©Aston Martin
"It was pushing under braking, so it was difficult to stop the car sometimes because the engine was overdelivering. Then, apparently, the SLM [straight line mode] didn't work for me, so I could not open the rear wing.
"A combination of both made the laps very tricky."
Indeed, Alonso found himself wrestling with a car that was proving difficult to control under braking while simultaneously losing a crucial straight-line advantage.
‘Early days’ still for Honda PU
To his credit, Alonso stopped short of delivering a full-blown indictment of Honda’s latest effort, stressing that the package remains at an early stage and has had little opportunity to be properly calibrated.
"As I said, free practice felt ok, and I felt a step forward.
"It's still very early days and [the PU] is probably a bit immature with all of the controls. It's a sprint weekend. On a normal weekend, we have three practice sessions to nail the package.
“Obviously, on a sprint, we need to deal with the situation in today's qualifying session and in the sprint race. We will try to understand a few things."
Read also: Alonso offers no timeline on Aston Martin F1 futureThat explanation may offer Aston Martin some comfort, but it does little to disguise the immediate problem.
With only one practice session available before Sprint qualifying, there was simply no time to iron out the wrinkles in the new power unit’s behaviour.
For Alonso, Saturday’s Sprint will therefore be less about fighting for points than extracting useful information from a package that, for now, appears to have created almost as many questions as answers.
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