Fernando Alonso's feelings clear after F1 star pulls out of Australian Grand Prix practice
Aston Martin's nightmare start to 2026 continued down under.
It’s been a poor start to the year for Aston Martin and the first Formula One race of the season hasn’t even taken place yet. Having snagged Adrian Newey from Red Bull, plenty of eyes were on the Silverstone-based constructor heading into 2026, but it’s been nothing short of a disaster so far.
Having wrestled with power unit problems since the beginning of pre-season testing, there have even been some suggestions that Aston Martin could pull out of the Australian Grand Prix altogether. It remains to be seen whether they go down that particular route, but the weekend hasn’t got off to the best of starts, given Alonso has pulled out of FP1 because of a power unit issue.
Despite the less-than-ideal start to proceedings, Newey has claimed that Alonso still has a positive outlook and isn’t being dragged down by the situation. Commenting in Melbourne, the engineer said: "Fernando is one of the true greats. 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 races wins.
"I'm not sure how old he is. Nobody quite knows what his age is. But he's still super-quick, super-talented, super-sharp. 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.
FOLLOW OUR F1 FB PAGE! Get all the latest from our Formula 1 coverage via our dedicated Facebook page
"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."
During the first practice session in Melbourne, there was a surprise one-two, given both Ferrari drivers came in fastest. Max Verstappen and new team-mate Isack Hadjar came in just behind, while the Mercedes duo of George Russell and Kimi Antonelli were down in eighth. In FP2, Oscar Piastri of McLaren went quickest, beating Russell and Antonelli to the top of the timesheet.
