Alonso backs Aston to crash the ‘big three’ party after lively Zandvoort Friday
Fernando Alonso walked out of the Zandvoort paddock on Friday night with a grin and a spring in his step — and with good reason. Aston Martin’s Fridays haven’t exactly been their happy place this season, but the AMR on the Dutch dunes looked switched on from the moment the green light came on.
Alonso wound up second in FP2, neatly wedged between the McLarens and at the sharp end on single-lap pace. He wasn’t getting carried away — the orange cars still looked a touch too quick for anyone’s liking — but he did sound bullish about the company Aston could keep for the rest of the weekend.
Fighting McLaren? Not quite yet. Mixing it with Mercedes, Ferrari and Red Bull? That, he said, is on the table.
“We’re probably not in range to go toe-to-toe with McLaren,” Alonso admitted, before adding the line that perked up ears across the garage: “But the others don’t look far away. We’ll try to be in that mix.”
That’s a notable shift. Historically this year, Aston have spent most Fridays scrubbing the tyres, staring at the data and quietly wishing for a reset. Here, they rolled out with a balance Alonso liked and lap times to match. The last time they felt this confident on a Friday was Hungary — and that turned into a tidy weekend.
There are caveats. It’s still only practice, track evolution at Zandvoort is always mad, and the wind can turn a hooked-up car into a handful in half a lap. But there’s a deeper reason the team’s shoulders look looser: what they’re seeing on track is finally mirroring what the factory tools say it should.
For a team targeting consistent podium-contending form in the coming seasons, that correlation is everything. Alonso called it the real win of the summer: upgrades arriving as advertised, simulation matching reality, and a development loop they can trust as they head into the winter and on towards next year’s Barcelona test. When the numbers line up, you can start planning big.
Across the garage, Lance Stroll’s day was more bruising. The Canadian clipped the banked Turn 2 and met the wall, triggering an early end to his FP2. Initial replays suggested he kept his hands on the wheel — always a heart-in-mouth sight at Zandvoort since 2023 — but he reported he was fine and fit to continue. The mechanics will have earned their stroopwafels tonight.
So where does that leave Aston heading into Saturday? If the long-run pace holds up and the team keep the car in its sweet spot through changing conditions, qualifying could be spicy. Zandvoort rewards confidence and commitment; few on this grid wring more from a car on the limit than Alonso. If he gets a clean shot in Q3, parking the green car among the heavy hitters looks realistic.
It won’t take much to swing things either way. A gust in the wrong place, a scruffy banker, traffic in Sector 3 — you know how it goes here. But on a track that punishes uncertainty, Aston looked sure of themselves, and that’s half the battle.
As Alonso put it, this Friday felt different. Not perfect. Not purple everywhere. But solid, repeatable, promising. And for a team that’s been hunting a dependable baseline on Fridays all year, that might be the most important lap time of all.
