“Great job everyone. Well done. Let’s see what she can do.” With that message, the long-awaited evolution of the Aston Martin AMR26′b‘ either ‘EVO‘in the 2026 season of the Formula 1. This is how he opened his first free practice in the Hungarian Grand Prixand the light begins to be perceived at the end of the tunnel. It is only a first contact, steps and refinements are missing, but Fernando Alonso He found himself in a place he had not seen in the first 10 rounds (final 13th at 2,475). Higher up, Charles Leclerc dominated the first contact with the route located half an hour from the beautiful Budapest.
For Aston Martin It was a free session full of work. Of course, there were up to 16 new features, presence in all areas and the verification of correlation as a basis, the magic word that deals with whether what the factory and the circuit say correspond. And from the long runs with the hard one it was proven. Although it did not avoid scares, because Lance Stroll He got a giant scare. In the middle of turn 3 and at the change of direction, the new rear suspension of the AMR26 burst. “There has been a failure,” said the Canadian. It caused the red flag.
It’s a suspension fault
It does not mean that that new part in the rear axle is born wrong. It could have been an isolated problem and it was confirmed by seeing Alonso continuing the session after breaking his brother car after checks by its mechanics. The two-time champion mounted a soft compound and began to climb the board, placing himself at the height of the Haas, Alpine or Williams. Much more consistent than what was seen in the worst start to the campaign of his career.
But there is an infinite amount of time left until the real value of the improvement is known. The first contact is worth drawing the aerodynamic map, finding the first synergy with the Honda power unit and there is always a Alonso tuned from the first round. But it remains to be built and measured, especially if the competition brought up several rookie pilots with the presence of Hertha (in it cadillac of Bottas), Paul Aron (in it Alpine of Colapinto), Hirakawa (in it haas of bearman), Fornaroli (in it McLaren of Piastri) and dressed (in it mercedes of Antonelli).
Leclerc commands… and breaks
Leclerc gets out of the Ferrari.
time The Asturian was 2.5 behind the leader and in the difference with the leader after training and the classification it will be verified what percentage of success the improvement begins to have. Although the upper part is, for the moment, a chimera. Belongs in the first outline from the weekend to Ferrari, with a good feeling with the race and qualifying tires. They even tested their revolutionary rear spoiler with paraffin and it seemed that the concept received good initial reviews.
Of course, it is early to establish favoritism. No driver from the upper zone had much more than one lap on soft, although Leclerc He was able to get down to the barrier of 1:18 (1:19.075) with sufficiency. Of course, he also got out of Free Practice 1 early after noticing a damaged component in his car when he entered the pits. “Something has broken,” he said.
something has broken
Other contenders will come to the upper zone. In their first test, no one was less than half a second behind the Monegasque, which is unrealistic on such a short track. They also add things that squeak, with complaints about the second gears. Max Verstappen (+0.484) or the other’s discomfort SF-26, the one of Lewis Hamilton (3rd at +0.543). Further away if possible are the mercedeswithout Kimi Antonelli in the car and George Russell almost a second.
The hell of Carlos Sainz
Sainz leaves.
For its part, Carlos Sainz It was the other side of the coin. Nothing went well in the very difficult training that opens Hungary. He closed the grid at more than 4.5 seconds after a collection of incidents that did not even allow him to attack and improve the result. Traffic was encountered from the beginning that led to an investigation for erratic driving, he lost his first opportunity for time when the red flag came out and got a huge scare when he wanted to attack.
It happened in the first corner and the Madrid native lost braking in the first corner. It seemed to lock up from far away, putting the FW48’s brakes in the spotlight along with the weather conditions. It was the bang to his tires that he left without attacking the clock. Williams needs to improve a lot.
Classification of Free Practice 1 of the Hungarian Grand Prix
FP1 Hungarian GP.
