F1 2026: Aston Martin team 'on their knees' as Newey opens up on Alonso pain

Aston Martin F1

Aston Martin F1 team 'on their knees' as Newey opens up on Alonso pain

2026 was not supposed to be like this

Graham Shaw Consultant Editor

Digital sports specialist running global brands for 30 years

Wednesday 11 March 2026 20:37 Updated: 21:54

Adrian Newey has opened up about the sheer physical and mental struggle Aston Martin is going through after a nightmare start to the 2026 F1 season.

Hopes were high that the signing of the Newey, the sport's foremost design genius, would usher in a new era for Aston Martin, one that would deliver a car finally capable of challenging for race wins and championships.

But while the 67-year-old maestro believes he has assembled a chassis with terrific potential, the car's power unit has been a disaster area as the partnership with Honda gets off to the rockiest of starts.

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Newey dropped a huge bombshell when the F1 circus rocked up in Australia for last weekend's season opener in Melbourne, admitting that both his drivers feared permanent nerve damage from vibrations emanating from that power unit.

Despite all the work going into improving the situation, Newey admitted that neither driver would likely be able to finish Sunday's 58-lap race at Albert Park. To say the situation was embarrassing - and painful - would be an understatement.

While the criticism has been brutal and unforgiving from both media and fans, it is easy to forget the absolute agony being felt within the team right now. Something Newey pointed out when he spoke with media during the race weekend.

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Newey opens up on Aston Martin struggles

He explained: "I mean, as I said, emotionally, I mean our mechanics were up until four o’clock this morning. So of course they’re on their knees. The factory has been offering a lot of support, so it’s something we really need to try to get on top of as quickly as possible."

While the team are working round the clock - in unison with Honda - to implement solutions, it is unlikely to be a quick fix. For the 44-year-old Alonso, that is a bitter pill to swallow.

The Spaniard has now gone 21 years since winning the second of his two world titles, and he believed the addition of Newey would give him the chance to finally add to that tally before retirement beckons.

2026 though will likely be another lost year for Alonso, a fact that Newey admits is difficult for the man from Oviedo to process.

'A hard mental place' for Alonso

"Fernando obviously, in my opinion, he’s one of the true greats," he claimed.

His ability, his talent, his all-round capability, he should have won, in truth, far more than the two championships he has to his name and however many race wins.

"He’s still, I’m not sure how old he is, nobody quite knows, but he’s in his forties. But he’s still super quick, super talented, super sharp. Talking to him, he doesn’t feel as if he’s suffering in any way. His eyesight’s still very good, his reactions, apparently he’s very proud of the fact that he was the fastest starter last year on reaction time.

"So, he’s an amazing person, and so we all, I suppose, were trying to contain our hopes because we knew this was going to be a difficult year, a build year. Certainly, on the chassis side, we on AMR’s side, we started very late with a very compressed cycle.

"Not trying to make excuses, but it means we knew that certainly the first part of the season we were likely to be a bit behind, but hopefully with the potential, which I still believe we have on the chassis side, to catch back up, or would have done without the distraction that’s now caused.

"So, for Fernando it’s a hard mental place to be in at the moment."

Where next for Aston Martin and Honda?

The big question for Newey and his team now, is how fast can Honda fix the issues enough for Aston Martin to finish race races, let alone win them.

Time waits for nobody in this sport, and pretty soon the Japanese giant will need to start thinking also about building a power unit for 2027. These are very tough times.

"I think we are where we are with Honda," admitted Newey.

"Obviously, our focus now is to work with Honda to get to the best possible place. Being realistic, this season is first of all, as I mentioned, getting on top of this vibration problem so we can run reliably, and from there to see how much performance they can add to the combustion engine in particular.

"Then at the same time, of course, Honda needs to start working on the ’27 engine because it’s clear that a very large step in combustion engine power is needed for ’27, and that has to be their sole focus."

Written by

Graham Shaw - Consultant Editor

Digital sports leader with 30 years of senior level experience running global brands. Built sportinglife.com to be a behemoth in the UK as well as being in charge of the Planet Sport network of sites including planetf1.com, football365.com, teamtalk.com and planetrugby.com. Then grew goal.com to be the world's biggest soccer website in 18 languages and 37 territories. Was GM of Portals for Perform Group (now DAZN) with overall responsibility for sportingnews.com, spox.de and voetbalzone.nl.

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Adrian Newey Fernando Alonso