Aston Martin pulled off something that would have sounded absurd a few weekends ago: both cars into Q2, for the first time in 2026. Fernando Alonso qualified 12th, Lance Stroll 14th, for the Malaysian Grand Prix at Sepang.

Long-straight circuits — Monza, Baku, Madring — have been pure torture for the AMR26, which simply can’t keep up in a straight line. Sepang, with more corners and fewer straights, finally spoke the car’s language. Alonso climbed from 14th in FP1 and 15th in FP2 to 12th in FP3, a progression he summed up without false modesty: “It’s a miracle that we are fighting with cars that are much faster than us.”

A little help from fate didn’t hurt either — Arvid Lindblad and Franco Colapinto, both carrying grid penalties, chose to skip flying laps in Q2, clearing the way for both Aston Martins to advance. Alonso ended up 1.524 seconds off Verstappen’s pole time, a gap that isn’t exactly sending him rushing for the champagne: he expects the penalized drivers starting behind him to sail past on the straights come Sunday anyway. Stroll backed up the theory — corners help them here, straights never do.

Source: Formula1.com (https://www.formula1.com/en/latest/article/how-a-miracle-helped-alonso-and-aston-martin-to-earn-p12-on-the-grid-for-the-bahrain-grand-prix-in-malaysia.gtjGUTcnU67mvSadBmN9J)