Why Alonso's patience with Aston Martin and Honda is reliant on time he doesn't have

What would Fernando Alonso really be thinking right now?

After three years of seeing his patience tested by a rebuilding Aston Martin squad, 2026 was supposed to be the year all the pieces of the puzzle finally clicked into place.

"I'm aware that this takes time and I don't have that time," the Spaniard said in September 2024, when Aston Martin announced the bombshell signing of design guru Adrian Newey. For Alonso, it was a long overdue opportunity to work with the F1 design legend, who had always eluded him, having often competed against Newey's bold designs instead when he was at McLaren and Red Bull.

Newey's capture fit perfectly within the dream Aston Martin owner Lawrence Stroll sold Alonso when the two-time F1 world champion decided to extend his deal with the Silverstone team for 2025 and 2026, taking him to the age of 45. Extending his stay with the Strolls into the new regulations era presented one final roll of the dice for Alonso to grab that elusive third F1 world championship, or at least return to winning ways after a 13-year drought.

Newey, Honda, Aramco, Valvoline, Ferrari tech chief Enrico Cardile, a new factory and wind tunnel; everything seemed to be in place for Alonso's last dance to be a merry pirouette into the sunset, an end befitting of a glittering career that should have yielded more than two world titles in grand prix racing.

"I was very clear to Aston in the first conversations that the appealing part of this project is just everything that we are building," Alonso explained when he committed his future to the team. "For me it was a must to enter new regulations with a new project, and also with Honda as a partner. We have incredible, talented people in the team now on the technical side that will benefit from the new wind tunnel and the new facilities in Silverstone, so there were a lot of factors that made 2026 very appealing with Aston."

A fresh-faced Alonso ahead of his F1 debut at the 2001 Australian GP

Photo by: Rainer W. Schlegelmilch / Motorsport Images

But any celebrations of the 25th anniversary of his F1 debut in Melbourne will be muted, as Aston's much hyped 2026 bid looks set to unravel before the season has even begun.

The team suffered a disastrous pre-season, with a vibrating Honda engine that rattles apart the battery after a dozen or so laps. It is understood that while efforts are ongoing in Japan to find solutions as soon as possible, Aston will likely have to park up early in Sunday's race unless it has found a last-second remedy to keep the battery going. A story which sent the team's PR machine into a frantic damage limitation exercise.

That change of tone towards expectation management soon became a necessity during the first week of Bahrain testing, when the oncoming avalanche of challenges meant the initial expectations of F1's new superteam unleashing its might from the start of 2026 was proven to be too optimistic.

"I think everything can be fixed for sure, short and medium term. I don't think there is anything that is impossible to fix. But we need to wait and see" Fernando Alonso

Instead, the team is trying to position itself as a brand-new outfit, which is quite a heavy spin. But what is true is that Honda has had to restart its F1 programme almost from the ground up due to its initial decision to withdraw from F1, deploy its engineers on other projects and take its eye off the 2026 rules for a critical period of time. It led to a deficit that will take time to overcome.

It's a deja vu for both Alonso and Honda after an equally calamitous start of their partnership at McLaren in the previous rules era. But while Honda eventually got it right, time is the one commodity Alonso doesn't possess right now. He must hurry up and wait.

Attention from Spain on Newey's first Aston design was immense this winter, from fans trying to get a glimpse of the delayed AMR26 at Barcelona's shakedown to social media being flooded with the number 33, the elusive pursuit of his 33rd grand prix victory.

It is nearly 13 years since Alonso's last F1 victory

Photo by: Rainer W. Schlegelmilch / Motorsport Images

For now, Alonso has been putting on a brave face in public. "I think everything can be fixed for sure, short and medium term. I don't think there is anything that is impossible to fix. But we need to wait and see," he said in Bahrain. "We will try to fix everything that we can before Australia, and after that try to fix as many things as possible in the first couple of races before it's too late in the championship. But I'm optimistic. I think there is a solution in place."

As much as the tenacious Asturian has been quaffing from the fountain of eternal youth, time waits for no one and neither does Formula 1.

Will Aston and Honda get it right in time for the Spaniard, or will his words turn out to be prophetic and will the quest for 33 remain a broken dream?

Time is ticking on Alonso and his Aston Martin dream

Photo by: Alastair Staley / LAT Images via Getty Images