Untelevised Alonso radio reveals ‘ridiculous’ engine comment

SINGAPORE – Fernando Alonso could be heard exclaiming “ridiculous this engine” over Aston Martin team radio at the Singapore Grand Prix.

The Spaniard’s post-race comments added context to that outburst, as he called for an investigation into deployment issues with the Honda engine during the race, a problem which he said cost him positions.

Fernando Alonso unhappy with Honda engine deployment

Both Aston Martins started the Singapore Grand Prix from the pit lane, after the AMR26s were worked on under parc ferme conditions.

Only Alonso’s AMR26 made it to the finish, as Lance Stroll recorded his 11th DNF of the season after a clutch issue ended his evening.

Alonso ultimately crossed the line P16, a lap up on Sergio Perez’s Cadillac, and two on Valtteri Bottas in the sister MAC-26.

At one stage in the race, as a Cadillac pulled away and a Red Bull came flying past, Alonso came over team radio to express his frustration.

In a message not picked up on the world feed, Alonso said: “Haha. Energy. It’s so ridiculous this engine.”

Alonso has been a vocal critic of the F1 2026 power units, with the near 50/50 split of electrical and internal combustion engine power.

It became clear from his comments after the race that his frustrations were focused more specifically on the Honda engine in the back of his AMR26.

Unhappy with the amount of deployment and where it occurred, Alonso believed the impacts to have been significant.

“Obviously, there is always something more to extract from the car, if we redo the race again,” Alonso began.

“Had a little bit of understeer in the race. We could not manage to fix it. Then a lot of energy deployment problems in the race, not deploying in the right place at the right time, especially after the virtual safety cars.

“We lost a lot of places and a lot of ground with the lack of deployment. So yeah, we need to look at that.”

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Nonetheless, Alonso was able to look back on the first triple-header of F1 2026 with some positivity.

He scored the best result yet of this Aston Martin-Honda alliance with P8 at the Sepang-hosted Bahrain Grand Prix in Malaysia.

“I mean, we took points in Malaysia, so that was a good triple,” said the two-time world champion.

“But it was demanding. Demanding because of the conditions, the humidity, especially for the mechanics, everyone in the team. Hopefully we can give them a better time in the next one.”

Alonso has scored all seven of Aston Martin-Honda’s points in F1 2026. The team sits P10 in the Constructors’ standings, five points behind Williams.

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