- Alonso warns Aston Martin may be unable to race at Monaco due to gearbox fault.
- Unexpected downshift at the wrong corner could send the AMR26 into the barriers.
- Stroll flags a second gearbox problem that will cost Aston Martin time at the hairpin.
Fernando Alonso says Aston Martin may not be able to race at the 2026 Monaco Grand Prix unless the team fixes a gearbox fault that first appeared in Miami.
The two-time world champion made the warning on Thursday, speaking to the media, including The Race’s Jon Noble. His concern is not about being slow. It is about whether the car is safe to drive.
Why a ‘random downshift’ is so dangerous at Monaco
The specific fault troubling Alonso is an unplanned downshift, where the gearbox selects a lower gear without the driver asking for it. At most circuits, that costs time. At Monaco, it can put the car into a wall.
Alonso explained why the driver is powerless when it happens. “We are passengers sometimes when you put one gear down, and you have push from the engine, like going on full throttle,” he said.
According to the Spaniard, the engine surge that follows an unexpected downshift can lock the rear brakes or send the car accelerating into a corner.
He was direct about what that means for this weekend. “If you have the downshift problem like we had in Miami, probably we cannot even race, because we will crash in one of the braking points due to a very different downshift type,” he said.
Monaco’s barriers sit close to the track at every turn, leaving no space for recovery.
A reliability record that leaves no margin
The gearbox problem sits on top of a difficult season for Aston Martin. The team has scored zero points in the constructors’ standings. Earlier in the year, vibration problems ended races after just 10 to 20 laps.
Alonso said fixing the downshift fault alone would not be enough if those earlier problems returned.
“If we have reliability issues like at the beginning of the year, that we completed eight, 12 laps or something like that, then it doesn’t change much to be in Monaco,” he said. “So we need to put everything together.”
Team-mate Lance Stroll identified a separate gearbox issue that is particularly costly at Monaco. Below 40 kilometres per hour, the gearbox loses synchronisation and has to reset.
That happens every time the car passes through the Loews Hairpin, the slowest corner in Formula 1. Stroll described the impact plainly: “Every time we go through Loews Hairpin, we’re going to lose sync completely of the gears. Then we’re going to have to sync those again, which is huge laptime [loss].”
The 2026 season is the first in which Aston Martin has run its own gearbox, having previously sourced the unit from Mercedes. The problems both drivers described reflect the difficulties of building and running that system for the first time.
A small seat tweak and cautious optimism
Alonso did arrive in Monaco with one problem already resolved. He retired from the Canadian Grand Prix after 23 laps because back pain made the car undrivable. The cause was a more reclined seating position introduced under technical chief Adrian Newey.
The team has since reverted to a position close to the one Alonso used in 2025. He said the fix came down to a very small change.
“One or two millimetres of different angle or different pressure point,” he explained. That was enough to press a nerve and take away the feeling in his back during the Canadian race.
He said the problem should have shown up in pre-season testing, but Aston Martin’s limited running meant it went undetected.
His longest test run in Bahrain lasted just eight laps. Newey is expected to attend Monaco in person for the first time since the season-opening race in Australia.
Alonso described the mood within the team as focused and said the squad had spent the two weeks since Canada preparing for the street circuit.
But he was careful not to overstate what that preparation could deliver. Whether the gearbox holds together will determine whether any progress made off the track can be shown on it. “Monaco,” he said, “will tell the truth.”
