F1 2026: Adrian Newey admits Aston Martin are FOUR months behind rivals

Adrian Newey

Adrian Newey admits Aston Martin are FOUR months behind F1 rivals

Newey confirmed a delay

Sheona Mountford F1 Journalist

Motorsport journalist working in F1 since 2024.

Wednesday 4 February 2026 08:59

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Adrian Newey has admitted that Aston Martin are four months behind their F1 rivals with the 2026 car.

Aston Martin were one of the later arrivals at the five-day Barcelona shakedown last week, where they only ran two out of the allotted three days on Thursday and Friday.

Team principal and legendary designer Newey, has recently revealed the team were 'fighting' to make it to the shakedown and delved into the delay in the wind tunnel.

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Aston Martin welcomed a new state-of-the-art wind tunnel to their Silverstone factory in March 2025, but F1 teams were allowed to run wind tunnel tests for their 2026 machinery from January 2025.

Newey revealed, however, that Aston Martin waited for its new wind tunnel to be fully operational before testing 2026 machinery, a decision that has put them behind their rivals.

Why Aston Martin are behind F1 rivals?

Speaking on Aston Martin's website, Newey said: "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."

Following its debut at the private test in Barcelona, the AMR26 has been labelled an 'aggressive' design compared to their rivals for 2026, with Mercedes' George Russell calling the design 'spectacular' and a 'standout in terms of car design.'

Whether this converts into performance, however, remains to be seen with the Barcelona shakedown mainly being concerned with mileage and reliability, particularly as Aston Martin embark on a new journey with power unit suppliers, Honda.

F1 Aston Martin Adrian Newey 2026 regulations