What does Alonso expect from Aston Martin's major upgrade package for Hungarian Grand Prix?

After enduring a difficult start to the 2026 F1 season, Aston Martin is hoping that this weekend's Hungarian Grand Prix will mark the beginning of a turnaround.

While most of the grid has introduced a steady stream of developments throughout the opening 10 races of the 2026 season, Aston Martin has taken a very different approach.

Rather than bringing small performance gains every few events, the Silverstone-based team has largely refrained from upgrading the AMR26, choosing instead to focus on addressing the car's fundamental weaknesses before introducing a significant package.

The result has been a difficult first half of the season, with Aston Martin slipping behind its midfield rivals and rarely featuring in the fight for points.

Now, however, the team is set to debut its biggest upgrade package of the year at the Hungaroring, with Fernando Alonso optimistic that it represents the first step in Aston Martin's recovery.

"I don't think that it changes anything in the approach that we've had so far this year," Alonso said ahead of the Hungarian Grand Prix. "We go to every race trying to maximise what we have in our hands. We're here to win races and to fight for championships."

The two-time world champion admitted the team has been playing catch-up ever since pre-season testing in Bahrain revealed fundamental problems with the car.

"We didn't start the season that way, and we will not be that way either, because we are just in the process of understanding these regulations and getting onto a good path, let's say, with the development of the car.

"I think for the first 10 races, all the teams opted for a different strategy, the more conventional one, to bring two or three tenths of a second every two or three races, and then you end up with one second or one and a half seconds by race 10 or race 12.

"We didn't do that, so we fell a little bit behind everyone else on the grid, and now we will try to catch up all at once."

Despite the difficult season, Alonso praised the work carried out at Aston Martin's factory over recent months.

"I'm obviously optimistic. I'm very proud of the team and of the job that they've done since the Bahrain test, when we understood that we had a problem and we had to fix a few weaknesses on the car.

"I think this is the first step towards those fixes, but there are more to come."

Although expectations are naturally high surrounding the upgraded package, Alonso cautioned against expecting an instant transformation.

"Difficult to say," he replied when asked how much performance gain he expects. "I'm not thinking too much about numbers, positions or something like that, because if we go back to the last five races, I think we had very different gaps to the midfield.

"We had a more or less consistent gap to pole position, which is unreachable, obviously, at this moment, but there were a couple of tough circuits. I think Silverstone was tough. Spa was one of the toughest."

The Spaniard pointed out that the team's deficit at Spa-Francorchamps illustrated the scale of the challenge still facing Aston Martin.

"I think we had the guy in front of us 2.1 seconds ahead, so there is no package in the world that will give you that amount of time. Probably the position would not change if you ran the updated car in Spa one week ago, so that's how we need to treat it."

Instead, Alonso believes the effectiveness of the upgrade package will depend heavily on circuit characteristics.

"It will change circuit by circuit. Hopefully Budapest is a friendly circuit for us. Power is not the most important point here, which obviously helps. We will update the car, but not the engine yet, so we still have something that we need to overcome."

Ultimately, Alonso stressed that the team's priority this weekend is not chasing a particular finishing position, but confirming that the development direction is finally delivering the intended results.

"As I said, I'm more interested in understanding the direction of the car, whether we are on a good path and whether we finally unlock the performance."