Fernando Alonso was far from impressed with his Aston Martin in Abu Dhabi FP1, going as far as to call it the “worst car ever”.

It has been a challenging season for Alonso and the Aston Martin team as a whole, which rather than working its way closer to the front of the F1 grid, has found itself slipping back into the midfield pack, with Alonso scoring points just once in his last five races.

Fernando Alonso issues cold ‘worst car ever’ verdict

Additional reporting by Thomas Maher

Abu Dhabi marks the final round of the F1 2024 campaign, and it did not get off to an ideal start for the two-time World Champion Alonso, who ended the opening FP1 session P11 and two places behind Aston Martin reserve driver Felipe Drugovich who took over from Lance Stroll for the session.

And Alonso reached for team radio to vent his frustrations over the Aston Martin AMR24.

“Worst car ever, and worst traffic preparation ever,” he said.

“Next time, I do my outlap myself.”

F1 2024: Team-mate head-to-head standings

👉 F1 2024: Head-to-head qualifying record between team-mates

👉 F1 2024: Head-to-head race statistics between team-mates

Alonso is the most experienced driver on the F1 grid and is regarded as one of the best, though despite a couple of near misses with Ferrari, he has not been able to add to his title tally since his 2005 and 2006 successes with Renault.

Radio outbursts like this one carry shades of the infamous “GP2 engine” message from his McLaren-Honda days, and Alonso claims that only once in his racing career has he been in the best car in a category, and that was not in Formula 1.

Instead, he claims that was when he raced with the title-winning Toyota team in the World Endurance Championship.

Asked by the media, including PlanetF1.com, how hard it has been to stay motivated this season and extract the best from the AMR24, Alonso replied: “I mean, it was not difficult to keep motivated, because every two weeks, you have a chance to do a little bit better than the previous weekend.

“So, you know, this calendar doesn’t allow you to rest, but to have time to think, you know, you are continually racing.

“So yeah, it was not easy, not difficult to get motivation.

“But yeah, in a way, I’m used to, you know, not having the best car. So I think I had one time the best car, in Toyota, in WEC, in 25 years of racing. So I’m always motivated.”

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