"Alarms on the Car": Alonso Retires in Canada Sprint to Save Aston Martin for Qualifying

The mirage lasted only a few hours for Aston Martin in Canada, Fernando Alonso had managed to get his car into SQ2 of sprint qualifying, a small moral victory for a team that has been fighting against itself all season, but Saturday's sprint race returned the green team to its reality, the Asturian retired on lap 18, victim of the reliability problems that give him no respite.

Saturday started badly for Alonso, although not definitively. On the first corner of the sprint, the Spaniard had a small touch with Gabriel Bortoleto in the middle of the start melee, the contact damaged his front wing and he lost part of the endplate, although he was able to continue without the immediate need to pit. From there, the Aston Martin progressively lost pace and positions, unable to sustain the level shown on a single lap on Friday, because even on the team's best Saturday of the year, there was still a feeling that much of the miracle bore the exclusive stamp of the Asturian.

The real problem came later, for several laps Alonso began to report various discomforts and alarms on the radio, some conversations hinted at concern on the pit wall as the driver even hinted at the possibility of stopping the car, Aston Martin first opted to bring him in to change tires, but barely a lap later he made the final decision, to retire the car to preserve it for qualifying, scheduled just a few hours later.

"Yes, we had some alarms on the car and some reliability problems, obviously qualifying is in three hours so we were out of the points and I tried to give the guys in the garage a little more time," explained Fernando Alonso after the sprint, a phrase that perfectly portrays the moment Aston Martin is living where it is no longer just about speed but about survival, about trying to make it to Saturday afternoon and Sunday in one piece, about damage limitation.

Montreal had offered a small ray of optimism for Alonso because after months trapped in an unpredictable car and especially punished by the Honda power unit problems at the start of the year, Aston Martin seemed to have found some more stability in recent races, both Alonso and Lance Stroll had managed to finish recent Grands Prix, something that could not even be taken for granted just a few weeks ago, until this Saturday.

Pedro de la Rosa, Aston Martin ambassador, pointed out during the broadcast that the problem seemed to be related to the front part of the car, although without confirming exactly the origin of the incident, the team has not issued an official explanation about the breakdown. The retirement in the sprint not only stopped the team's emotional momentum but also reignited doubts about the project's reliability.