Alonso keeps "feet on the ground" after Aston Martin's first Q3 of 2026
Fernando Alonso has waited until the São Paulo Grand Prix for a Saturday like this one. In a wet and unpredictable qualifying session at Interlagos, the Aston Martin driver took the car into the final segment for the first time this season.
He finished ninth fastest with a 1:30.311, which becomes eighth on the provisional grid once penalties are applied.
The session was a long one. Heavy rain forced a red flag just over two minutes into Q1 and the suspension lasted more than 80 minutes. Running restarted on full wets, then moved onto intermediates as the track dried.
Lando Norris took pole with a 1:27.470 just before the rain returned, with George Russell 0.204 seconds behind him.
Alonso’s breakthrough came in Q2. He was among the first to switch to intermediates, and his 1:29.072 put him into the top ten while several faster cars missed the cut. Once Q3 began, the returning rain made it hard to generate tyre temperature, and ninth was as much as he could extract.
He was in no mood to call it a good time. “Not fun, because the conditions were tricky, so the level of focus was quite high today,” Alonso said.
The Spaniard pointed to how little the field knew about the new cars in the wet. “Unknown conditions for everyone, especially on this year’s cars. I think we didn’t have much practice on the wet,” he said.
That meant a lot of guesswork from the pit wall and the cockpit. “It was all experimenting a little bit, and the first Q3 of the season feels good.”
The result gives Aston Martin-Honda something rare this year, a chance to race among cars it would normally trail. Alonso sees the weather as the key to Sunday. “It opens a new possibility for us, obviously, the conditions,” he said.
“Let’s see if tomorrow is wet all through the race. Maybe we have a chance to score points.”
He was equally clear about what happens if the rain stays away. “If not, I think we will go back to our natural position,” Alonso said.
Dry running earlier in the weekend left him cautious about reading too much into one session. “FP3 on the dry was a little bit disappointing, so we need to remain with our feet on the ground.”
Interlagos has handed Alonso an opening, but how long it stays open is out of his hands.
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