Newey on the grid in Qatar — Photo: © IMAGO

F1 News & Gossip

Adrian Newey's first Aston Martin project in jeopardy

Aston Martin and Honda are teaming up for the first time this year

Sam Cook Digital Journalist

Sports Journalist who has been covering motorsport since 2023

Wednesday 21 January 2026 13:44

Comments from two senior Honda Racing employees have suggested that Adrian Newey's Aston Martin F1 project could well be in jeopardy.

Design legend Newey joined Aston Martin in March last year, having previously left Red Bull during the 2024 season. Throughout his career, Newey has claimed 25 championships all told and is largely considered to be one of the greatest car designers of all time.

While he reportedly ignored Aston Martin's car development in 2025 as it was too late for him to really yield any influence, he has been working hard to try and give the team the best possible chance heading into the wholesale regulation reset that is coming to F1 this year.

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Aston Martin are wanting to become a championship-challenging team in the future, and with Newey and two-time champion Fernando Alonso at the outfit, they are starting to build a strong looking squad.

But alongside his engineering duties, Newey is also now the team principal at Aston Martin, after Andy Cowell was axed from the position at the end of last year, leaving question marks about how exactly that setup will work.

And now it appears that there are questions regarding the team's new power unit partnership, too, and how competitive they can expect to be with Honda power units.

Honda have teamed up with Aston Martin after their highly successful partnership with Red Bull came to an end, but Honda Racing president Koji Watanabe has now said that the 2026 power unit regulations are 'extremely challenging'.

Speaking at the unveiling of their 2026 power unit, Watanabe said: "Of course, if we are going to compete, we are committed to winning. However, the 2026 regulations are technically extremely challenging, and perhaps we will struggle.

"At this stage, before any on-track testing, we don’t know the gap to our rivals, so we’ll have to wait and see once testing begins. In the long term, we aim to fight for championships."

What are Aston Martin's 2026 expectations?

In more bad news for Newey and Aston Martin, Honda’s F1 project leader Tetsushi Kakuda was even more downbeat about the power unit, telling Autosport: "The electrification side is progressing as planned. However, that is not necessarily the case for the internal combustion engine.

"Ultimately, a lot depends on the amount of development time available. Taking that into account, we believe we have done everything we can to the fullest extent."

Despite this, Aston Martin will be hoping that they will be more competitive than they were in 2025, particularly with Newey and former Ferrari star Enrico Cardile onboard.

The Silverstone-based outfit finished seventh in the constructors' championship in 2025, and they have not achieved a podium finish in either of the last two years.

Alonso will be desperately hoping that the AMR26 can give him an opportunity to secure more podiums and potentially even challenge for a 33rd career race victory, but the team may well have to wait until 2027 or even 2028 for that.

Aston Martin Adrian Newey Honda