An outstanding performance from Aston Martin driver Fernando Alonso led to a P9 finish at the 2026 F1 Dutch GP. He added two points to his own total and the team’s following a rather fortunate P10 in Monaco back in June.
Starting P18 following a disappointing qualifying session for the team, the Spanish driver gained three spots before the red flag. He moved up a further two once Lindblad and Colapinto served their penalties. However, Gabriel Bortoleto did pass him, including a wave as his lack of engine power cost him that position.
As the two-time F1 World Champion got stuck behind Ocon, and then Albon once the French driver boxed, they had to roll the dice on strategy because of the lack of horsepower.
In the end, a single stop post-red flag gave the 45-year-old valuable track position. A long stint on softs paid off as he switched to hards on lap 34. Critically for him, a big lunge on Alex Albon into turn 1 got him past the Thai a few tours later.
While Nico Hülkenberg did get ahead of him, he held off Pierre Gasly and Yuki Tsunoda in the closing stages for a fine 9th.
Fernando Alonso on strategy change at 2026 F1 Dutch GP
Once Aston Martin and the Spaniard realised overtaking on the same tyre life as another car, they extended. Even on old rubber, he was substantially quicker than fellow Carlos Sainz who also went long, highlighting the progress made.
Although Honda brought an engine upgrade to Zandvoort, the struggles to be competitive on straights continued for the time being.
“Yeah, I mean that was not the plan. I think the plan was two stops and to go more conventional.
“But we need to sometimes deviate a little bit from what is the normal things. When we are in traffic we cannot use our potential. We are faster in the corners and the people in front of us, we are slower on the straights and we’re stuck behind.
“So as soon as we have free track in front of us we try to use it, even if it’s not the optimal performance and the optimal strategy, and it’s what we did today.”
Asked if he felt the top 10 was on merit, the Spaniard felt that was the case.
“Yeah, I think so. We scored one point in Monaco with nine DNFs, and today we scored two points with Max’s DNF.
“I think it was well deserved.”
During the 2026 F1 Dutch GP, radio communications between Fernando Alonso and Aston Martin proved to be difficult.
Nonetheless, they fought their way through it and got points.
“Yeah, a lot of radio issues. I couldn’t hear them. Apparently they couldn’t hear me, which is good news sometimes.
“The strategy was clear, but some of the blue flags, overtaking manoeuvres that we have to defend, these kind of things were frustrating at times.”
Massive progress on the chassis, work to do on the engine
While a lot of the pre-season headlines were about Honda and its massive struggles, the AMR26 chassis was also a long way off the benchmark. A B-Spec car brought to Budapest was a significant step forward, with more upgrades in Zandvoort. They are now amongst the top teams in the midfield in this department.
On the engine side, neither driver felt a massive difference regarding power. In fact, the upgrade by Honda made the car worse on engine braking and drivability compared to recent rounds, according to the 2005 and 2006 World Champion.
“Yeah, I think another step forward, especially on the chassis side. We brought four or five components here.
“Also the Budapest package was understood in the break and with all the data available after the race. We fine-tuned a little bit the set-up around that new spec plus the new parts.
“I think now we are optimising the chassis side and we are able to extract the maximum. On the engine it’s more difficult. I don’t think we can be black and white on if we have more power or not.
“From the driver’s side of things, you change circuit one month after the other race.
“The drivability has been difficult all weekend. We struggled with the downshift again and we struggled with the engine braking corner to corner.
“It was a challenging weekend in that regard.”
When it was put to him how difficult was it to manage the tyres considering the issues he was facing with the engine during the 2026 F1 Dutch GP, Fernando Alonso confidently said:
“I’m a very good driver.”
