A much livelier Aston Martin was expected in the Zandvoort Sprint Qualifying, but in the end the result was always the same. Yet the FP1 sessions had reassured especially Fernando Alonso with a time close to the top ten, but then new technical problems forced him to start in last position in the short Saturday race.
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Failure of Alonso’s rear movable wing
SQ1 started badly for Alonso, who had to deal with a problem with the active aerodynamics of the rear wing. The movable flap, in fact, did not open in SLM mode – that is on the starting straight – causing an inevitable slowdown of his car which drastically increased his times. From the telemetry you can see how the speed deficit was as much as 24 km/h.
The failure was communicated by Aston Martin itself, then also confirmed by the Spaniard: “Apparently, the SLM mode did not work on my car, so I could not open the rear wing“.
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Issues with the new Honda engine
The failure of the rear wing actuator, however, represents the minor problem suffered by Alonso on Friday in Zandvoort. The new Honda power unit, updated thanks to the ADUO right in the Netherlands, still needs work on power delivery calibration, which inevitably affects the drivability of the car itself.
“In the free practice everything went more or less well, but in qualifying we had problems with the power unit – explained Alonso – The engine kept pushing under braking, so sometimes it was difficult to stop the car because it delivered too much power“.
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