If there’s one circuit on the Formula 1 calendar that you’d hope would limit the damage of your underperforming power unit, it’s Monaco.

That’s not to say Aston Martin was expecting to suddenly parachute into the top 10, but it would have hoped for better than its tricky start this weekend - slowest of the 11 teams in practice, both drivers struggling with an issue that could send them into the wall and a day that produced Alonso’s biggest criticism of the 2026 cars yet.

As Alonso said on Thursday: "Monaco is not the place to have a random downshift, and you have rear [brake] locking or [engine] pushing or something like that. Then you will crash into the wall, and the driver will look stupid.”

But it seems that’s exactly what befell Alonso with his unusual crash in FP1 as he speared into the wall on the run down to the Nouvelle chicane.

“We are losing a lot of front grip in the middle of the corners,” Alonso said after FP2.

“It seems that we have this chronic understeer that we cannot solve the problem. We did a couple of set-up changes. We will do more tonight and hopefully improve the situation. But at the moment, it is a challenging topic.

“Then the upshifts, downshifts, harvesting level into the corner in Monaco is crucial to be precise and confident into the corners.

“At the moment, it is way too inconsistent, the way the car downshifts and the speed you approach the corners. It is not easy to drive.”

Confidence and predictability behind the wheel is everything around the streets of Monaco, something that Aston Martin’s drivers are sorely lacking.

“[The drivers] still have issues, downshifting. It’s not predictable enough, other drivers to be able to attack the corners, the braking areas,” Aston Martin team ambassador Pedro de la Rosa said.

“We saw Fernando losing the rear end going into the chicane. It’s not only downshifting, it’s just a bit more complex than pure downshift. It’s just about how much the torque can be consistent, how much trust you have on the rear end, how strong the front is, and which gear you will downshift into the apex.

“So, a lot of things we are working on, but the reality is that the conditions were difficult and we found that very, very unpredictable car today.

“Definitely, we need to make a step forward [for Saturday].”

Theoretically, the driver can make the difference in Monaco, but de la Rosa believes the Aston Martin is too unpredictable for Alonso or Lance Stroll to do so.

“I think that if you give a car to your drivers that is predictable enough, although it can have a lack of grip, but it's predictable, if you give a car that has a strong front end, the driver can make a difference,” he said.

“But at the moment, we are not in a position that we can deliver a car with these characteristics to a driver.

“We really need to give them a more predictable and stronger front end in the car for them to make a difference.”

Alonso’s biggest 2026 criticism yet

A challenging Friday led to Alonso’s biggest criticism of these cars and power units so far.

Asked if the 2026 cars were at their best in Monaco, Alonso replied: “No, I don't think so. This is probably the worst generation of cars I ever drove in Monaco”.

And when asked if it was ‘the best track for the worst generation”, Alonso said: “I don't know. It's just... The way you charge the battery, with the braking and lifting off and things like that, obviously creates a lot of inconsistency into the engine braking of the car.

“Sometimes you have less, sometimes you have push, and sometimes not. If the battery is completely full, then you don't recharge because the battery is full. So you don't have engine braking. It's like pushing.

“It's just the rules. Hybrid cars should not be racing. It's as simple as that.”