Can Adrian Newey save Aston Martin-Honda?

Aston Martin’s slow start to its new partnership with Honda was the biggest talking point during F1 2026 pre-season testing in Bahrain.

But the presence of Adrian Newey, who helped turn a misfiring Honda into a title winner with Red Bull, should calm any nerves ahead of the Australian Grand Prix.

Why Adrian Newey is the man to turn Aston Martin-Honda around

A version of this article originally appeared in PlanetF1.com’s conclusions from Bahrain testing

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History tells us that teams do not recover quickly from a start like this.

The McLaren-Honda reunion in 2015 began on a downbeat note and only went down, down and deeper down from there.

So the chances of Aston Martin and Honda fixing all their problems between now and the start of the new season are remote in the extreme.

Indeed, there was more than a touch of the McLaren days about the photographs of Fernando Alonso turning to glance at his stricken car following his stoppage on the penultimate day in Bahrain.

Even at the dawn of a new season, that picture – like the famous Interlagos deckchair of 11 years ago – threatens to become the defining image of Alonso’s 2026.

Is it happening all over again to poor old Fernando? At a point of his career when he has no more time to waste?

Nobody will take any joy from seeing Alonso take one more punch to the gut before retirement.

Yet if there is one comfort for Aston Martin as it faces a humbling start to the new season, it is to be found in the form of Adrian Newey.

Go deeper: Why Aston-Martin Honda’s slow start should come as no surprise

What if the Honda PU rains on Adrian Newey’s parade?

Aston Martin AMR26: What we’re hearing about Adrian Newey’s first Aston Martin

It was Newey, after all, to whom Honda turned after it finally parted ways with McLaren at the end of 2017.

Only when it fell into the hands of Newey and his technical team at Red Bull – first via Toro Rosso in 2018 (a car in which Newey had no input) before linking up with the senior team the following year – did Honda rediscover its self-worth and a sense of direction.

The rate of progress, in an environment more accommodating and patient than Honda ever found at an already underachieving McLaren, was astonishing.

Never let it be forgotten that, four years after its split from McLaren, that same engine won the world championship in the back of Max Verstappen’s Red Bull.

This is what Honda is capable of when it is managed correctly and with no small degree of emotional intelligence.

In Newey, there is nobody better placed in the entire paddock to harness its potential.

His very presence at Aston Martin, knowing what he has achieved with Honda not so long ago, should cushion the disappointment at the start of this season.

With Andy Cowell leaving the team, as exclusively revealed by PlanetF1.com earlier this month, there will be an increased emphasis on Newey to manage the relationship between team and engine partner.

The key, almost certainly, will be to double down on the concept of the ‘partnership’ and shield Honda from bearing the brunt of the frustration of a team which had long regarded 2026 as its time to strike.

One too many emotional team radio messages and post-race interviews, or one party briefing against the other, would risk setting fire to this relationship before it even has a shot of long-term success.

This is not a time to bring the house down, to borrow a phrase from Oscar Piastri, but to stress the importance of maintaining a united front and seeing the bigger picture.

Ever since his move from Red Bull was announced in 2024, it seemed almost inevitable that Newey would prove to be Aston Martin’s ticket to the top.

For now, his job is to simply hold it all together.

But as long as there’s Adrian, there’s hope for Aston Martin.

In their own words: Why Aston Martin and Honda have started slowly

The Aston Martin side

In an interview published by Aston Martin ahead of Bahrain testing, Newey estimated that the team started four months behind its rivals with the development of its 2026 car.

The interview was released days after the conclusion of ‘Shakedown Week’ in Barcelona, where the AMR26 took to the track for only the final 24 hours or so of running.

Newey said: “2026 is probably the first time in the history of F1 that the power unit regulations and chassis regulations have changed at the same time.

“It’s a completely new set of rules, which is a big challenge for all the teams, but perhaps more so for us.

“The AMR Technology Campus is still evolving, the CoreWeave Wind Tunnel wasn’t on song until April and I only joined the team last March, so we’ve started from behind, in truth.

“It’s been a very compressed timescale and an extremely busy 10 months.

“The reality is that we didn’t get a model of the ’26 car into the wind tunnel until mid-April, whereas most, if not all of our rivals would have had a model in the wind tunnel from the moment the 2026 aero testing ban ended at the beginning of January last year.

“That put us on the back foot by about four months, which has meant a very, very compressed research and design cycle.

“The car only came together at the last minute, which is why we were fighting to make it to the Barcelona Shakedown.”

The Honda side

PlanetF1.com was the first to report that Honda had encountered difficulties with the development of its 2026 power unit more than a year ago.

Speaking to select media including PlanetF1.com at the Daytona 24 Hours in January 2025, Koji Watanabe, the president of the Honda Racing Corporation, conceded that “we are struggling” with the demands of F1’s new rules.

Watanabe also admitted that the lightweight battery for 2026 – confirmed as the cause of Alonso’s stoppage on the penultimate day in Bahrain testing – was “not so easy to develop.”

“Everything is very difficult, but we try our best,” he concluded.

Like Newey, Watanabe also telegraphed that Honda would be in for a troubled start to 2026 in the weeks ahead of testing.

In an interview with Japanese outlet Sportiva in early January, Watanabe said: “To be honest, not everything is going well, so there are many areas where we are struggling, but nothing fatal has happened that we cannot overcome.

“In this situation, we are quietly concentrating on improving performance and reliability.

“Aston Martin also wants to keep building cars that reflect Adrian’s vision, so I think the next step for us on the power unit side is to figure out how to adapt to that.

“If doing so increases our competitiveness and makes us more likely to win, then we’ll do whatever it takes!”

He added: “Given the uncertainty surrounding rival manufacturers’ progress, it remains a battle to see how close we can get to our own self-imposed targets.

“Frankly, we still need more time.

“We’re advancing development by incrementally assessing performance gains from integrating various components.

“Some prove successful, others fail unexpectedly – it’s a mixed bag.”

Despite its recent success with Verstappen and Red Bull, it is important to remember that Honda is effectively returning to F1 in 2026 after more than four years away.

Honda officially withdrew at the end of Verstappen’s first title-winning season in 2021, providing only technical support to Red Bull until the end of last season.

Aston Martin’s partnership with Honda was announced ahead of the Monaco Grand Prix in May 2023.

It was inevitable that Honda’s preparations for 2026 would be compromised – resources diverted into other areas, engineers heading elsewhere – by its U-turn as its engine project was switched off only to be restored and built back up again.

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