Lance Stroll believes Honda’s upgraded Formula 1 engine is “not nearly enough” of a step forward after Aston Martin’s double Q1 elimination at the Dutch Grand Prix.

Aston Martin lost both cars in the first stage of sprint qualifying on Friday, but hopes were higher given that it was the first proper day of the new Honda engine running on a race weekend - plus the caveat of Fernando Alonso’s straight mode not working on his rear wing in sprint qualifying. 

And while the pace was better after the first runs, with Alonso 12th, ultimately both Aston Martin drivers fell short of a Q2 place, with Alonso a tenth adrift. 

Stroll was a tenth and a half behind Alonso and delivered a somewhat bleak verdict on Honda’s “small step” forward when quizzed about it after qualifying. 

“Not so much, I think. Maybe a bit, but not nearly enough,” Stroll said, when asked by The Race if he could feel a step forward. 

“On the chassis side, I think we're quite good. We made a big step in Budapest. The driveability and the power is the next thing we need to really work on.” 

He said there are “still a lot of issues on the engine side”, namely the driveability problems, which is making the Aston Martin very unpredictable on corner entries.

“Not good, not good. It's a lottery,” Stroll said of the driveability. “Right now, we're just not getting the consistent engine braking, going into the corner and a lot of rejected downshifts. So, yeah, a lot of issues.” 

Alonso: Aston Martin has taken "amazing" step 

Alonso felt like there was around a tenth more on the table with a better outlap for his final run, which wasn’t an improvement on his previous best.

But he was far from disappointed when comparing the much-reduced gap between Aston Martin and the ultimate Q1 pace of Oscar Piastri's McLaren.

“Piastri P1 in Q1 was 1.3 seconds in front of us - we used to be 4.5 seconds average on the gap to the leader, so we improved three seconds in two races," Alonso explained.

"This is amazing. Everything is working as expected, but this is a tough sport. You need to always keep improving.” 

He agreed with Stroll that there’s more time to be found if Honda can improve the driveability of the new power unit, but that can only be done at Honda’s Sakura base in Japan. 

“Unfortunately, here on the track side, there is not much we can do," Alonso added. "We need to rely on some big changes in the factory or software or whatever is needed.

"This has to come from Japan, so it's not from one day to the next. It's more towards Monza where we need to find another step there. There are a couple of tenths to optimise in the package.” 

As for Aston Martin’s prospects for the race from 18th and 19th on the grid, Alonso said: “Let's see. Normally we are doing better on the race pace because our chassis is very good. 

“When [rivals] have old tyres or older tyres in the race, we rely more on our good grip from the chassis and we don't rely so much on the tyres and grip.

"We can do a better job, but at the same time we cannot overtake on the straights. We are in a difficult position there, but we try our best.”