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

The Honda-powered Aston Martin AMR26, designed by Adrian Newey and to be driven by Fernando Alonso and Lance Stroll, will compete in the F1 2026 season.

After raising eyebrows during its on-track debut in January’s Barcelona shakedown, the car will be launched on February 9. Here’s what we’re hearing ahead of the official presentation…

Who has designed the Aston Martin AMR26?

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This article was originally published on January 25. It has been updated and republished ahead of the official launch of the Aston Martin AMR26 on February 9

The AMR26 is the first Aston Martin F1 car to be designed by Adrian Newey since his high-profile move from Red Bull.

Newey is the most decorated individual in F1 history with involvement in more than 200 race wins and a combined 26 drivers’ and constructors’ championships for the likes of Red Bull, McLaren and Williams.

After his signing was confirmed in September 2024, Newey officially linked up with Aston Martin on March 3 2025, arriving in the role of managing technical partner as well as becoming a team shareholder.

Aston Martin announced in the closing weeks of the 2025 season that Newey is to assume the role of team principal in F1 2026.

His predecessor, Andy Cowell, has become the team’s chief strategy officer ahead of the new season to manage the crucial three-way partnership between Aston Martin, new engine partner Honda and fuel supplier Aramco.

Now 67, Newey has developed a knack of exploiting regulation changes over the course of his illustrious career, using new rules to good effect with his three previous F1 teams.

Newey is not alone in designing with Aston Martin AMR26 with chief technical officer Enrico Cardile also heavily involved in the car’s development.

Cardile started work with Aston Martin in July 2025, a year after the team announced his signing from Ferrari where he served as technical director.

Aston Martin is understood to have carried out a reshuffle of its technical department ahead of the F1 2026 season with aerodynamics director Eric Blandin – formerly of Ferrari and Mercedes – and chief designer Akio Haga among those believed to have had their roles changed.

Will Adrian Newey’s new role affect his work on the Aston Martin AMR26?

Newey has been adamant that his new responsibilities as team principal will not affect his design-and-development work at Aston Martin.

Speaking at last year’s Qatar Grand Prix, just days after his new role was announced, Newey told Sky F1 of his design commitments: “That’s really what I want to and need to do.

“That’s what gets me out of bed in the morning, so I’m determined not to dilute that.”

There have been suggestions that Newey’s tenure as Aston Martin team principal may prove to be a short-term measure in any case.

When reports emerged in December 2025 that GianPiero Lambiase, Max Verstappen’s long-serving Red Bull race engineer, was in talks over a move to Aston Martin, it was claimed that he was in line for a senior role at the level of team principal or chief executive.

The team’s reported interest in Lambiase, who is to remain at Red Bull for the foreseeable future, suggests the team is open to a more long-term appointment.

Newey explained that he took the job as he is attending “all the early races anyway” at the start of the 2026 season, with his comments suggesting that he is not particularly wedded to the team boss role.

Asked why the decision was made for him to take over from Cowell, Newey told Sky: “To be perfectly honest, it became very evident that, with the challenge of the ’26 PU, Andy’s skillset, in terms of helping the three-way relationship between Honda, Aramco and ourselves, is absolutely his skillset.

“So he very magnanimously volunteered to be heavily involved in that through the first part of ’26.

“And that left [the question]: ‘OK, well who’s going to be TP?’

“Since I’m going to be doing all the early races anyway, it doesn’t actually particularly change my workload because I’m there anyway, so I may as well pick up that bit.”

In an interview with the official website of the Aston Martin F1 team in February 2026, Newey explained that the nature of his new role is about leading by example and providing the team with “a direction.”

He said: “I became a team principal towards the end of last year. In many ways, to me, it’s simply a title.

“The role within the team is to try to provide a direction, an ethos, a culture, that we all work by. I try to lead by example where possible.

“But really, it’s about developing everybody; we’re trying to develop at all levels so that we’re working well together, which then means we’ll get the best out of each other.”

What are the Aston Martin AMR26 design details?

The Aston Martin AMR26 caused a stir when it appeared for the first time at the Barcelona shakedown in late January.

The car carries a number of striking differences to others in the 2026 field with some design elements seemingly inspired by the experiences of Newey’s illustrious career.

Writing in his in-depth analysis of the Aston Martin AMR26, PlanetF1.com tech editor Matt Somerfield noted that the car has several design features “that appear to have Adrian Newey’s design DNA all over them.”

These include a wider nose, which Somerfield notes was reminiscent of the design pursued by Newey during Red Bull’s period of dominance with Sebastian Vettel between 2010 and 2013 (below).

Somerfield added that the sidepod design was “something to behold” on the Aston Martin AMR26, likening it to the “shock factor” of Mercedes’ adventurous zero-pod design in 2022.

Newey has also included a small pair of ‘horns’ on the airbox, which drew parallels with the McLaren MP4-20 – a car also designed by Newey – of 2005 (below).

Somerfield wrote that the “cavernous gap” between the sidepod undercut and the floor brought to mind the ‘double floor’ concept previously tried with the John Barnard-designed Ferrari F92A of 1992 and the Toro Rosso STR6 of 2011.

The high mounting position of the upper wishbone of the rear suspension (below) also caught the eye, with Mercedes driver George Russell remarking that the design “visually looks very impressive.”

“I think the Aston Martin was probably the most standout in terms of the car design,” Russell told PlanetF1.com and other media outlets.

Newey and his technical team opted for a pushrod suspension at the front and rear of the AMR26, with Somerfield also comparing the rear-wing pillars to a design pursued by McLaren in 2009 – three years after Newey left the team for Red Bull.

“Of course, this [the 2009 McLaren] isn’t a Newey machine,” Somerfield wrote.

“But it doesn’t mean that the sketch from his notebook hasn’t been laying in wait all this time.”

How did the Aston Martin AMR26 perform in the F1 2026 Barcelona shakedown?

PlanetF1.com revealed on January 23 that the Aston Martin AMR26 was set to miss at least the opening day of the first pre-season test of F1 2026 in Barcelona.

The team confirmed the news three days later, revealing its plan to take to the track for the final two days of the test.

The AMR26 did not leave the garage until the final hour of the penultimate day with Stroll at the wheel.

Stroll completed just five laps in total, none of which were representative, with the AMR26 causing a late red flag to bring the day’s running to a premature end.

PlanetF1.com revealed that evening that Stroll had been signalled to stop as a precaution after trackside marshals had spotted an issue with the AMR26 via the car’s LED lights.

It was suggested that an electrical issue – potentially related to the Honda engine’s communication with the car – was at the root of the problem, with Aston Martin mechanics attending the scene wearing high-voltage gloves.

Alonso took over driving duties for the final day of running, completing a total of 49 laps.

None of Alonso’s laps were representative with his quickest time 4.447 seconds slower than the fastest lap of the test, set by Lewis Hamilton’s Ferrari.

Alonso was also spotted with his rain light flashing blue, a measure normally used for drivers lacking an F1 superlicence.

However, reports claimed that the blue light on Alonso’s car was used to signal to other cars that the AMR26 was not travelling at full speed down the straights on some runs.

Having carried out just two of its permitted three days of running in Barcelona, Aston Martin ended the test with 54 laps on the board – 110 fewer than next-best Cadillac and 46 fewer than top team Mercedes (500).

Will the Aston Martin AMR26 get upgrades before the Australian Grand Prix?

With new rules in place for 2026, the rate of car development is expected to be significant in the F1 2026 season.

In his interview with the Aston Martin F1 team’s official website, Newey confirmed that the AMR26 will receive upgrades before new season starts with the Australian Grand Prix on March 8.

Newey said: “The AMR26 that races in Melbourne is going to be very different to the one people saw at the Barcelona shakedown.

“And the AMR26 that we finish the season with in Abu Dhabi is going to be very different to the one that we start the season with.

“It’s very important to keep an open mind [with development].”

Writing in his 2017 book, How To Build A Car, Newey wrote that he approaches a new set of regulations with two key principles in mind: finding solutions his rivals will struggle to copy and ensuring that the car has long-term development potential over the course of a given rules cycle.

Newey confirmed that long-term development has been a key consideration with his design choices for the Aston Martin AMR26.

He added: “We’ve attempted to build something that we hope will have quite a lot of development potential.

“What you want to try to avoid is a car that comes out quite optimised within its window but lacks a lot of development potential.

“We’ve tried to do the opposite, which is why we’ve really focused on the fundamentals, put our effort into those, knowing that some of the appendages – wings, bodywork, things that can be changed in season – will hopefully have development potential.”

Have simulation troubles hurt the development of the Aston Martin AMR26?

Despite the hype surrounding the AMR26 design, there have been signs over the last 12 months that the 2026 season has arrived slightly too soon in Aston Martin’s development as a team.

Newey attended three races – the Monaco, British and Qatar grands prix – in 2025, holding a media briefing during his first trackside appearance with Aston Martin in Monte Carlo.

He took that opportunity to play down expectations for Aston Martin ahead of 2026, identifying the team’s simulation tools – specifically the driver-in-the-loop simulator, a crucial device in the era of limited real-life testing – as an area of weakness.

He told assembled media: “It’s fair to say that some of our tools are weak.

“Particularly the driver-in-the-loop simulator, which is a fundamental research tool, needs a lot of work because it’s not correlating at all at the moment.”

Aston Martin has taken steps to remedy the situation in the months since.

In June 2025, a matter of weeks after Newey’s comments, Aston Martin hired former Red Bull man Giles Wood to the role of simulation and vehicle modelling director.

Wood is regarded as a key ally of Newey having followed the tech guru from McLaren to Red Bull in 2007, playing a role in the team’s dominance with Sebastian Vettel between 2010 and 2013.

His move to Aston Martin saw Wood return to F1 activities after a stint working with technology giant Apple, having left Red Bull’s Advanced Technologies division in 2017.

Aston Martin further bolstered its simulations efforts in November 2025 when it hired Marco Fainello as a consultant.

Fainello, who is thought to have been recommended to Aston Martin by Cardile, was an instrumental figure at Ferrari during the team’s dominant period with Michael Schumacher at the turn of the century.

The 61-year-old, who oversaw the development of Ferrari’s first-ever simulator, has also returned to F1 after an extended absence.

On the chassis side, the lingering weakness with the team’s simulation tools appears to be one of the main barriers to Aston Martin achieving success from the off under the 2026 rules.

Asked about his gut feeling on where Aston Martin will stand in the initial 2026 pecking order, driver Lance Stroll claimed the Silverstone outfit is not yet in a position to be considered a leading team.

He told PlanetF1.com and other media outlets at final race of last season: “No one knows at this time of the year how everyone’s going to look in Melbourne.

“For sure, we don’t have all the tools to be a top team, so there’s no hiding behind that, but time will tell how good we look.”

On the positive side, in his first interview with Aston Martin – published in May last year – Newey said that the 2026 regulations offered more scope for interpretation and innovation than he first thought.

This echoed what Newey said ahead of the introduction of the ground-effect rules in 2022, a season in which Red Bull re-emerged as F1’s dominant force.

Newey’s comments led some to conclude that he had potentially identified a loophole in the new chassis regulations.

What about the Honda F1 2026 engine?

The important thing to remember is that Honda is technically returning to Formula 1 in F1 2026.

Despite its success with Red Bull and Max Verstappen over recent years, Honda officially withdrew at the end of the 2021 season, providing only technical support between 2022 and 2025.

Honda’s U-turn means that its 2026 project has almost certainly been compromised to some extent in terms of resource, manpower and ultimately development.

Koji Watanabe, the president of the Honda Racing Corporation, first raised alarm bells about the manufacturer’s progress at the 2025 Daytona 24-hour race.

Watanabe told PlanetF1.com and other select media at Daytona in January 2025 that Honda was “struggling” with the development of its new engine, adding: “Everything is very difficult, but we try our best.”

A kind interpretation of his words was that Watanabe, who was speaking in a second language, was making a general comment on the technical challenge facing all manufacturers ahead of the 2026 season.

However, a recent interview Watanabe gave to Japanese outlet Sportiva appeared to confirm that Honda is indeed lagging behind some of its rival manufacturers.

Watanabe said last month: “To be honest, not everything is going well.

“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!”

Perhaps tellingly, Honda was not named in reports at the end of 2025 that two manufacturers – widely believed to be Mercedes and Red Bull-Ford – have identified a loophole in the new engine regulations related to compression ratio.

That would indicate that Honda is among those to have potentially missed a trick with the new rules, with rumours also claiming that Honda is behind on battery development too.

Newey is arguably the man best placed to harness Honda’s potential given the enormous success the two parties previously achieved at Red Bull.

Who will drive the Aston Martin AMR26?

The Aston Martin AMR26 will be driven by Fernando Alonso and Lance Stroll.

F1 2026 marks Alonso’s fourth full season with Aston Martin team having arrived from Alpine at the start of 2023.

This is also Alonso’s 23rd season in F1 after making his debut back in 2001, with 2026 also marking the 20th anniversary of his last title-winning season with Renault.

Set to turn 45 in August, Alonso is the oldest driver on the current grid with his current Aston Martin contract due to expire at the end of this season.

Alonso has said that a decision on his future will be made during the 2026 campaign.

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Stroll, meanwhile, is entering his eighth season with Aston Martin having originally arrived in 2019 when the team was still competing as Racing Point.

Stroll, who started his F1 career aged 18 with Williams in 2017, has gradually closed the gap to Alonso over the course of their stint as Aston Martin teammates.

The pair finished just 23 points apart in the 2025 standings, an improvement from gaps of 46 points in 2024 and 132 in 2023.

Will the Aston Martin AMR26 prove to be Fernando Alonso’s last F1 car?

Alonso is mindful that the F1 2026 rule changes represent his “last chance” (his words) to add to his tally of 32 career victories.

In a surprise admission in the second half of last season, the two-time world champion remarked that he is more likely to retire at the end of 2026 if he has a successful season, such is his desire to end his career on a high.

Alonso told Spanish publication AS of the prospect of retiring at the end of 2026: “It depends on the feeling I have next year, how I feel physically and mentally.

“But I do not know. Now I don’t have a clear idea. If the car went well, there’s a good chance it will be my last year.

“I know I have a better chance of doing well in 2027 or 2028, when there is stability in the human group we have now with Adrian Newey and the others.

“The first year they may do things well, but for the second or third they are guaranteed to do things well. But I have to see it with myself.

“If the car goes bad, there is a chance that it will continue for another year to end up with a good taste in your mouth.

“If the car goes well, 2026 will likely be my last year.”

When is the Aston Martin AMR26 launch date?

The Aston Martin AMR26 will be officially unveiled on February 9, two days before the start of the second pre-season test of F1 2026 in Bahrain.

Aston Martin’s launch will fall on the same day as McLaren takes the covers off its 2026 car, the MCL40.

While the Aston Martin car will be launched on February 9, the Honda engine for 2026 has already been presented to the world.

Honda took the unusual step of holding a season-launch event for its new power unit, officially named the RA626H, in Tokyo on January 20.

 

What will the Aston Martin AMR26 livery look like?

No surprises here: expect lots of green on the Aston Martin AMR26.

Aston Martin has competed with a base colour of British Racing Green since the manufacturer returned to F1 in 2021.

The team’s new partnership with Honda has naturally led to suggestions that the new Aston Martin may incorporate more white into its livery for 2026 (the team introduced a white rollhoop on its 2025 car in a minor tweak to the colour scheme).

A green F1 2026 showcar – appearing to carry a slightly different shade to recent Aston Martin F1 cars – was the centrepiece of Honda’s engine launch on January 20 (above).

However, it is unclear if the showcar used by Honda will be representative of the final Aston Martin AMR26 livery.

The AMR26 appeared in an all-black test livery at the Barcelona shakedown.

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