Six laps and home - How Aston Martin F1 team called time early on testing nightmare

Adrian Newey, Aston Martin, Bahrain, 2026 — Photo: © IMAGO

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Six laps and home - How Aston Martin called time early on F1 testing nightmare

Aston Martin are not looking in good shape ahead of the 2026 opener

Kerry Violet F1 News Editor

F1 editor and journalist covering motorsport since 2024.

Friday 20 February 2026 15:55

Aston Martin only managed six laps on the final day of F1 pre-season testing in Bahrain before Lance Stroll packed up for the day.

The team's F1 power unit partner Honda revealed early on Friday's running that they had been forced into making a last-minute adjustment to their run plan on the last testing day, shifting their 2026 plans from bad to worse.

The Silverstone squad had high hopes heading into their 2026 preparations with F1 design guru Adrian Newey on board as managing technical partner and their new team principal.

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But having arrived late to last month's Barcelona shakedown, Aston Martin's pre-season testing struggles became abundantly clear in Bahrain, with the team's driver duo of Fernando Alonso and Stroll painting a pretty bleak picture of their new car.

Just when Newey thought things couldn't get any worse, Alonso was left stranded on track during his final driving stint in Bahrain on Thursday, raising further concerns over the first power unit to come out of their works partnership with Honda.

After failing to get out on track during the first hour of Friday's morning testing session, a statement posted to social media by Honda read: "Our last run with Fernando Alonso yesterday showed a battery-related issue that impacted our test plan with the Aston Martin Aramco F1 Team.

"Since then, we have been carrying out simulations on the test bench in HRC Sakura. Due to this and a shortage of power unit parts, we have adapted today's run plan to be very limited and consist only of short stints."

It would be three hours and 45 minutes until Stroll managed to limp his way out of the garage in Bahrain.

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Following Honda's announcement, Aston Martin ambassador Pedro de la Rosa expanded on the issue to Sky Sports F1 as the team continued to be absent from the final morning session, saying: "Yesterday we had some battery issues on Fernando Alonso's car. Honda is carrying out some testing.

"Due to that and a shortage of parts, we will be doing limited runs today.

"They will be short and separated by half an hour to allow us to really look into the data and test things. We will not be doing long runs.

"We are not where we wanted to be. We have not done many laps but we have an enormous amount of data for Australia.

"There is a lot of work to be done behind the scenes but we have a direction. It is a long session and we have a mission to be completed."

And though Aston Martin had announced restricted stints, Stroll failed to get out on track in his new AMR26 until the last 16 minutes on Friday morning, making frequent trips in and out of the garage before completing just two whole laps across the four hour session.

The team weren't expecting to complete any long runs on the final day of pre-season testing in fairness, but even when Stroll got back in the car for the afternoon session, his performance was just as lacklustre.

The 27-year-old only managed to get a further four laps in before Aston Martin confirmed they were done with testing despite there still being two hours and 20 minutes remaining on the clock, bringing their total to only six laps for the final day.

F1 Aston Martin Adrian Newey Fernando Alonso 2026 regulations Lance Stroll