If there was one statistic to put Aston Martin's 2026 weekend into context, it was not Lance Stroll's home-crowd elimination in Q1, nor the team's slide to the back of the midfield. It was a single number that began circulating after qualifying ended in Montreal: Fernando Alonso 41, Lance Stroll 0.
That, according to figures shared on the P1 with Matt & Tommy podcast in their post-qualifying review, is the current run of consecutive qualifying sessions in which Alonso has out-qualified his teammate at Aston Martin. The number excludes sprint qualifying events, and represents a clean two-year streak.
"Fernando Alonso 41 nil against Lance Stroll. That is actually insane. 41 consecutive qualifying sessions ahead," host Matt Gallagher said as he ran through a head-to-head graphic of the current grid. Co-host Tommy Bellingham was equally taken aback. "Like, how not a single moment where you've just had a really good qualifying or Alonso's had a problem. That is madness. It's quite the streak."
The pair then arrived at the only conclusion left: "Alonso is a pretty good driver, isn't he? He's pretty good indeed."
The streak frames the awkward picture at Aston Martin heading into a wet, cold Sunday in Montreal. Lawrence Stroll's son is being out-qualified by his teammate every single Saturday with metronomic reliability, while the team itself is plainly the slowest in the field. Both Aston Martins were among the six drivers eliminated in Q1, with Alonso roughly one second clear of Stroll inside that bottom group. The team had hoped a new front-wing concept and a clean Saturday in Stroll's home race might shift the narrative; instead, the gap inside the garage only widened the conversation about it.
Across the grid, the head-to-heads make for interesting reading. The P1 hosts noted that several teammate pairings now sit on the edge of single-digit streaks: Lewis Hamilton, Arvid Lindblad, George Russell and Sergio Perez are all on 1-0 runs after their most recent quali; Colapinto, Lando Norris, Max Verstappen, Nico Hülkenberg and Ollie Bearman sit on 2-0; Carlos Sainz holds a 4-0 lead over Alex Albon at Williams. None of them sit anywhere near Alonso's number.
The streak also lands with timing the team will privately wince at. Aston Martin's structural rebuild around Adrian Newey, Andy Cowell and the imminent factory move is being framed externally as a 2026 transition with eyes on 2027. Yet the fact remains: of the two drivers Newey is being asked to design a car for next year, only one has not been beaten on a single Saturday in two full seasons. The conversation the team principal does not want to have publicly is the one the statistics have just made for him.
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*Originally published on [News Formula](https://newsformula.one/article/alonso-stroll-quali-h2h-41-0-streak-aston-martin-2026). Visit for full coverage.*
