Honda's spec 2 power unit looked like a disaster in Dutch GP sprint qualifying—Alonso dead last, Stroll 19th, both out in SQ1. The real story is messier. Alonso's rear wing active aero jammed closed in corner mode, cranking drag and killing straightline speed by 20km/h. That alone cost him 2.5 seconds. Strip it out and he's comfortably into SQ2.
But Stroll didn't have the aero glitch and still couldn't advance, which points to the actual problem: driveability. The spec 2 struggles on corner entry when the throttle stays open under braking, pushing the car wide and making it hard to stop cleanly. Alonso locked up on his flyer because of it. Honda's Sakura engineers ran overnight dyno tests to tune the software maps, but the fix won't be instant. Sprint format means one less practice session to sort it. Saturday afternoon will show whether this upgrade has real teeth or just teething pains.
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