One good and one bad: Fernando Alonso has a better car, although not a great one.

With just a drop of motivational fuel, Fernando's body language transforms. Just like when he entered The Q3 of the Spanish Grand Prix . Those sessions of other Grands Prix, where you had to run up to three sets of tires to get through to Q2, were long gone. At Imola, Aston Martin introduced its first 2025 evolution.

Alonso entered Q3 for the first time, as he did later in Monaco. "Barcelona was going to be a real test for us." But if Montmeló was the litmus test, it was best to contain his optimism. Just in case. At the end of the last Emilia Romagna Grand Prix, Andy Cowell offered a hopeful prognosis.

"The (new) package worked in low, medium, and high-speed corners. We haven't achieved that since last year. The wind tunnel worked, the simulator worked, the preparation was good... all of that raised the bar." At Montmeló, Alonso scored for the first time. Has the AMR25 really improved that much?

Saturday, well

The Catalan track offers a wider variety of challenges for testing a single-seater's aerodynamic performance . And the AMR25's initial performance on the Catalan track indicated an improvement in its performance . As Alonso recalled after Saturday's qualifying, "We've always been in the top ten in free practice."

He recalled the worst result of the year. "Two races ago in Miami , we were tenth and finished 20 seconds behind Sauber , and that was in two or three races. We've turned it around. So I'm happy with how the weekend has gone so far." Until now, it was Saturday. Indeed, in both Bahrain and Jeddah , Alonso needed three sets of soft tyres to make it to Q2 , where he was left without new compounds.

Until Miami, his best result was twelfth on the grid. He qualified thirteenth in the following four races, only to crash out in Q1 at Miami, where Aston Martin bottomed out and finished more than twenty seconds behind Nico Hulkenberg in the Grand Prix, as the Asturian recalled.

At Imola (with the evolution) and Monaco, the AMR25 changed course, but with some peculiarities. In the former, the teams that opted for the medium tyres on Saturday were successful compared to those that opted for the soft tyres, granting a few extra tenths of a second to the green car. However, fitting a faster compound (like the medium in this case) doesn't transform the aerodynamic map of an uneven car. So yes, the AMR25 was improving, at least at Imola , as Cowell pointed out.

Montmeló got off to a good start on Saturday. "We're in the middle class," a satisfied Alonso noted. However, Sunday opened up a different scenario. In the race, the AMR25 quickly showed worrying signs. On Friday, degradation was already detected during long runs. Aston Martin had to resort to serious compromises to contain it, with such a high wing load that, as a side effect, a parachute on the Asturian's back.

"We need to improve our straight-line speed a little, as well as tire degradation. Saturdays are quite competitive, and on Sundays we seem to take a step back," Alonso summed up at the end. "After lap seven, I ran out of the front left tire. I ran out of it so much that I slowed down the correction with the tarps and went straight on…"

And without top speed, thanks to that downforce, Alonso couldn't even use DRS to overtake his rivals. " It was really cruel, because with DRS on, the car in front of us would have gone. We made about five overtakes at Turn 3 on the outside, and one at Bortoleto at Turn 5." The Asturian recalled a similar situation at Imola. "Coming out on the outside at Turn 7, we made three overtakes in the final laps as well . So we have to start overtaking on the straight with DRS like the others do and not make suicidal moves."

So, at least at Montmeló and the Grand Prix, the AMR25 wasn't a car to write home about . It wasn't the one from Miami, but it wasn't the one from the day before either. Alonso had already predicted before the race that simulations had him in fourteenth place. In other words, Aston Martin was only behind Williams, Haas, and perhaps Sauber, although Hulkenberg and Sauber surprised with an unexpected fifth place. If it weren't for the final safety car and his desperate attack, Alonso wouldn't have scored any points.

Game by game

At the end of the Grand Prix, Trackside Operations Director Mike Krack put things in perspective. "The difference between qualifying and the race is quite simple. In qualifying, you put on new tires, one after the other. It masks a lot of the issues the cars have. This isn't just for our car, it's for everyone, which is why you see the small differences in qualifying as well."

"As soon as the tires have been used for two, three, or four laps, the weaknesses become more pronounced," Krack explains. "That's why you see the cars in front going full speed and the grid expanding so much." The Aston Martin was precisely one of those that was falling behind , as Alonso's performance confirmed. In other words, the performance at Imola would have less impact than Cowell would have suggested at the time.

If this was a first real opportunity to gauge Aston Martin's progress, it's best to hold back on optimism . The Gilles Villeneuve circuit in Montreal is a track with very different demands than Montmeló. Perhaps the AMR25 would be more at home there. So, with Aston Martin, as Cholo Simeone would say, "one game at a time."