F1 crisis team Aston Martin ‘not a happy ship’, Sky Sports insider spills details on Newey role

Aston Martin is ‘not a happy ship’ according to Sky Sports F1 insider David Croft as the crisis team continue to reel from a disastrous start to the 2026 season.

Much was expected from Lawrence Stroll’s expensively-assembled team this year, especially with the sport’s foremost design genius Adrian Newey at the helm.

So far though 2026 has been an embarrassing disaster with the new AM26 car several seconds off the pace and its drivers struggling to complete races. Fernando Alonso and Lance Stroll have been left fearing permanent nerve damage due to vibrations from the car’s Honda power unit.

Many experts have pointed to the promotion of Newey to the role of team principal late last year as a mistake, taking the 67-year-old partly away from his main role.

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Adrian Newey Aston Martin role explained

Croft spoke about what he is hearing on the current situation, and Newey’s role, in the latest episode of the Sky Sports F1 podcast.

“Aston will say and will point to a management structure that supports Adrian as the team principal and that there are people in place that can pick up and take over the work that Adrian doesn’t want to do.

He’s doing, as far as I’m being made aware of, about 80 percent of his original job and about 20 percent of the team principal’s job, currently. Now whether that changes towards the end of this season, we’ll wait and see.”

Will Jonathan Wheatley come to the rescue?

Jonathan Wheatley’s recent departure from Audi came along with speculation that he would be joining Aston Martin as team principal, but Croft says that is not clear-cut.

“I think Aston would be reluctant to say Jonathan Wheatley is definitely coming in, because the way I would see it if he was to come in, that puts the role of Mike Krack very much under the spotlight and whether he stays at the team or not because he’s kind of that de facto number to a team principal at the trackside, in a role very similar I think to what GP’s [Gianpiero Lambiase] going to be doing at McLaren.”

Whatever the future might hold for Aston Martin, the present is extremely grim, with Croft painting a very bleak picture of morale at the team in green.

Aston Martin is 'not a happy ship'

“Every message I get from Aston Martin at the moment, it’s not exactly full of hope and optimism, for the B spec car that’s coming in, for any engine upgrades that might come in during the course of this season, for morale improving as well. I don’t think it’s a very happy camp from what people are telling me from within that camp.

“So by that token, someone like Jonathan Wheatley would be a very good person to bring in because he does bring optimism and hope and experience and knowledge and is the sort of person that can turn things around in terms of making a workforce happier.

“And that I think is what Aston Martin need - they need a happy workforce that’s willing to put in the extra hours and disregard the results that are not going their way at the moment, for the long-term betterment of the team.

“But I’m not a CEO but that’s just my understanding of the situation. Sort the workforce out and then the other problems will take care of themselves. But it’s not a happy ship from what I’m being told.”

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