Newey admits Aston Martin started its 2026 F1 project too late

Aston Martin's difficult start to the 2026 Formula 1 season has not come as a surprise to managing technical partner Adrian Newey, who has explained that the team began work on its new car much later than its main competitors.

Newey joined Aston Martin from Red Bull ahead of the 2026 regulations, but the team's AMR26 has struggled throughout the opening races. The car has suffered from several technical issues, including problems with the new Honda power unit, vibration concerns and gearbox troubles, while Aston Martin has yet to introduce any performance upgrades.

According to Newey, the biggest problem was simply that the project started too late.

"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 said in an interview published on the official website of the Aston Martin team.

The experienced designer admitted the rushed development had clear consequences. One of the biggest compromises was the weight of the car, which remains above the ideal target.

"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," the Aston Martin team principal added.

Newey also revealed that Aston Martin chose an aggressive aerodynamic concept but did not have enough time to properly evaluate alternative solutions before committing to it.

"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," Newey admitted.

The team's biggest reality check came at the opening race of the season in Melbourne, where Aston Martin was still struggling to get the car running properly.

"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," he concluded.