Adrian Newey’s Aston Martin was two seconds slower than a 1990s F1 car at the Belgian Grand Prix

Follow us on Google Discover

Aston Martin had long suspected that the Belgian Grand Prix would be the nadir of their season.

Rather than incrementally upgrading the AMR26, the team have been working on a ‘B-spec’ car. They plan to introduce it at the Hungarian GP next weekend, with a new Honda engine to follow after the summer break.

Logically, this was always going to be the point where they were furthest behind in the development curve. And this was borne out in their qualifying performance.

How much will Aston Martin’s highly-anticipated upgrades in Hungary reduce their deficit to the top?

Fernando Alonso still expects it to be "difficult" to reach Q2 in Budapest

Comment

Like or Comment

Have your say Sign-in now for free

Aston Martin left in the dust by Ayrton Senna’s 1991 McLaren at Spa

Neither Fernando Alonso (P21) nor Lance Stroll (P22) broke the 1:50 barrier in qualifying. They were both over four seconds adrift of the Q1 benchmark set by Lando Norris, and around 5.6 seconds behind Kimi Antonelli’s eventual pole time.

More importantly, they were over two seconds slower than Cadillac, who locked out the penultimate row, and nearly three seconds behind the pace they needed to reach Q2 – Adrian Newey’s stated goal for the upgraded car.

While this is the longest track of the year, which naturally stretches out the gaps, it was also a brutal illustration of the challenge Aston Martin face with their upgrade. The rate of progress from rivals is higher than ever, and they have been left behind.

• READ MORE: Lance Stroll was literally as slow as a GT3 car thanks to super clipping at the Belgian Grand Prix

Aston are currently delivering the kind of performances seen by the cash-strapped trio of Virgin/Marussia, HRT and Lotus/Caterham at the start of the 2010s, but the key difference is that they have been one of F1’s biggest spenders in recent years.

As pointed out by Sky Sports Germany, they were even two seconds down on Ayrton Senna’s pole lap from 35 years ago. It’s worth noting that Senna was driving on a slightly shorter layout, but the difference was only 64 metres.

Senna’s lap time (1:47.811) would have put him 19th on the 2026 Belgian Grand Prix grid, splitting the Cadillacs of Bottas and Perez.