Newey opens up on Aston Martin's hugely difficult start to the 2026 F1 season

Aston Martin's first season as Honda's works Formula 1 partner has been far more difficult than many expected, with the Silverstone-based outfit finding itself at the back of the field after a troublesome opening half of the 2026 campaign.

After ending its long-standing customer relationship with Mercedes to begin a new era alongside Honda, Aston Martin entered the season with high expectations. Instead, the AMR26 has struggled on two fronts, with both the chassis and the new Honda power unit proving less competitive than anticipated.

Technical Chief and Team Principal Adrian Newey has now lifted the lid on the reasons behind Aston Martin's disappointing start, admitting the team underestimated the scale of the challenge it faced.

"Extremely challenging. On both the chassis side and the power unit side, we've been on the back foot from the start. In hindsight, we probably put too much expectation on ourselves – and of course, you must never forget the quality of the opposition you're up against across the grid.

"We didn't start serious work on the '26 car until mid-March 2025 and didn't get a model into the wind tunnel until mid-April. That left us several months behind our rivals – and that's a huge gap to close."

Newey explained that the difficulties went far beyond simply starting the project later than its competitors. Weight, organisation and aerodynamic development all contributed to Aston Martin's disappointing performance.

"Timing was a huge part of it, but not the only part. We've got a very talented group of people, but as an organisation we weren't yet working together as well as you would like and operating as one cohesive unit. Expectations were sky-high, but the reality of where we were didn't match that.

"On the chassis side, we're quite a long way overweight. Some of that comes from integrating the power unit and dealing with vibration issues we've had to work through with Honda, but we also didn't do as good a job as we should have on our side at saving weight. When you design in a rush, weight is the first thing that suffers because you don't have the time to thoroughly optimise everything.

"Aerodynamically, we also took a bold direction – which was largely pushed by me – without the luxury of exploring multiple concepts in depth because time was against us. I wouldn't say the direction we've taken is fundamentally wrong, but it has thrown up challenges we didn't anticipate."

According to Newey, the full scale of the task became apparent at the opening race of the season in Australia after pre-season testing was repeatedly disrupted by reliability issues affecting the integration of the Honda power unit with Aston Martin's chassis and gearbox.

"Melbourne was the wake-up call. Because of various power unit challenges, our first proper running was actually Free Practice Three at the Australian Grand Prix. Before that, in Barcelona and at the two Bahrain tests, we spent too much time in the garage just trying to get the power unit to run correctly with the chassis and gearbox.

"You know the idiom, 'it never rains, but it pours', and this is one of those classic cases where it felt like everything that could go wrong, did go wrong."

Despite the disappointing beginning to the season, Newey praised the response from everyone at Aston Martin, revealing that the entire organisation united around a long-term recovery plan rather than simply trying to solve short-term problems.

"Once we all got over the initial shock of where we were, the reaction was actually very positive, and this is what really sticks in my mind. The whole group pulled together around two clear priorities: first, to pull ourselves out of the hole with a major update before the August break; second, to build the foundations properly for the future.

"It's something every single one of us in the team should be proud of – the way we've all pulled together.

"You walk around the AMR Technology Campus at night and the lights are still on. There are a lot of late evenings, a lot of motivation, and a real determination to prove that we can do this. We have the facilities, we have the people, we have huge amounts of talent. The task is to make it all gel – and to an extent, take the pressure off ourselves so we can breathe and concentrate on medium- and long-term projects, not just the next race.

"That means not only solving our immediate aero and mechanical issues, but also introducing better systems and processes that underpin how we design and build the car."

Newey also revealed that Aston Martin's problems extended beyond the race car itself, with outdated internal systems hampering the team's ability to manufacture and deliver parts efficiently. Rather than blaming individuals, he believes the difficult start has exposed structural weaknesses that are now being addressed through major investment in production and engineering processes.

"We were relying on tools and processes that had been patched and bodged for years – you could trace some of them right back to the very early days of the Jordan team that was based here in Silverstone, long before Aston Martin returned to the grid. At some point, a system that's just patch-on-patch stops being fit for purpose. That's where we had got to.

"The result was a very frustrating car build. Parts weren't being ordered at the right time – not because people weren't doing their jobs, but because the underlying system was failing them."

Rather than viewing the difficult season as a setback alone, Newey believes it has provided Aston Martin with the opportunity to rebuild its foundations for the future.

"Very much so. We've taken this difficult spell as an opportunity to overhaul how we work. We're making big strides in our in-house facilities and production capabilities.

"You won't see all the gains immediately, but they'll be visible on the updated car: many more components are now produced in-house. The gearbox casing is manufactured here, the floor patterns and floors themselves are made here, and a lot of parts that were previously outsourced have come back in-house.

"That gives us better cost control, but more importantly, much greater flexibility and control over our own destiny. Bringing more work in-house gives us better quality control, better responsiveness and a tighter feedback loop from research to design to manufacture."