Aston Martin’s 2026 F1 Season: Over Before It Even Started
When Adrian Newey joined Aston Martin last year, F1 fans went wild. The sport’s top designer, new rules, a Honda engine, and Fernando Alonso are still behind the wheel. On paper, it was an ultimate new era. Then Bahrain happened, and everything went wrong for Aston Martin. After a disappointing start to the Barcelona shakedown, where the AMR26 arrived late and completed limited running, the Bahrain test only helped to raise more concerns. Not just from fans, but from Aston Martin themselves. Lance Stroll publicly stated that the car was four seconds slower than the competitors, a considerable performance gap. All the while, Newey also supposedly acknowledged in a team debrief that the car was not competitive at the moment. An assessment that did not instill confidence before the season opener.
So what went wrong for Aston Martin? The AMR26 is reportedly overweight, down on power, and difficult to drive, and locking up at both ends under braking. Though there’s plenty of blame to go around, a big chunk of the blame falls on timing. Newey was still finishing his gardening leave from Red Bull when Aston Martin needed him most. By the time he finally joined Aston Martin in March 2025, the team was already four months behind. Not to mention that this year, Aston Martin also had to build its own gearbox and suspension from scratch, rather than getting them from Mercedes as before. Each of these tasks on its own was huge as it is, but combined, it proved to be too big a challenge for Aston Martin to combat.
So is it over before it starts? Will what went wrong with Aston Martin be the end? Not necessarily. Newey has a plan, at least according to Ted Kravitz, and the team insists they know exactly what's wrong. There's a second Bahrain test starting this week, and Aston Martin is desperate to make progress before Melbourne on March 6th. However, it’s unlikely they’ll close a four-second gap within a week. The Australian grid is going to be a sobering moment for everyone who bought into the hype, and there was a lot of hype. Sometimes, things look perfect on paper but fall apart on track. This appears to be one of those times.
