Aston Martin team principal Adrian Newey explained that Fernando Alonso is facing a demanding mental test as the 2026 Formula One season begins, with reliability issues, painful vibrations and weak early pace combining to damage confidence before the Australian Grand Prix even reaches qualifying.

The season opener in Melbourne has already highlighted Aston Martin’s problems, with practice exposing both performance and durability concerns on the new Honda-powered car, while rivals from Ferrari, McLaren and Mercedes showed stronger early speed across both Friday sessions at Albert Park.

The first free practice session saw Ferrari start strongly as Charles Leclerc and Lewis Hamilton topped the times, while in the second session McLaren driver Oscar Piastri set the pace ahead of Mercedes pair Kimi Antonelli and George Russell, underlining the scale of the task facing Aston Martin.

Alonso skipped first practice but returned for the second session, where the two-time world champion ended up 4.9 seconds away from the fastest time, and Lance Stroll struggled even more, finishing just over six seconds adrift as both drivers battled a difficult balance and ongoing power unit concerns.

Aston Martin are working to solve reliability setbacks linked to the new Honda engine, and on Thursday the team also confirmed that the strong vibrations from the power unit placed Alonso and Stroll at risk of nerve damage, adding a serious health concern to the competitiveness issues.

The situation is especially sensitive for Alonso, who experienced major frustration with Honda engines during the McLaren years from 2015 to 2017, and Newey acknowledged that those memories, combined with the current performance gap, have created a difficult emotional backdrop heading into the first race distance.

Aston Martin Fernando Alonso mindset and Newey’s detailed praise

"Fernando is one of the true greats," said Newey.

"His ability, his talent, his all-round capability, he should have won, in truth, far more than the two championships he has to his name and however many race wins. Talking to him, he doesn't think he's suffering in any way. His eyesight is still very good. His reactions, he's very proud of the fact he was the fastest starter last year, in reaction time. So, he's an amazing person. We've been trying to contain our hopes because we knew this was going to be a difficult year, a build year. We started very late and on a very compressed cycle on the chassis side, but we knew that meant in the first half of the season we would be able to catch back up and we would very much have done without the distraction that's now caused. For Fernando, it's a hard mental place to be in at the moment."

Aston Martin Fernando Alonso season outlook and development plan

Newey described 2026 as a development phase for Aston Martin, explaining that the team began work on the new chassis much later than rivals and under a compressed schedule, which was expected to leave the car short in the opening races before upgrades helped close the gap during the first half of the campaign.

Despite that long-term plan, Newey accepted that the added setback of engine vibration and reliability distraction has made the opening round much tougher for Alonso, and for now the priority is stabilising performance and protecting the drivers’ health while the team chases progress through the early flyaway events.