F1 legend Adrian Newey under pressure at Aston Martin after Fernando Alonso bemoans 'faulty chassis'

Aston Martin

Adrian Newey under pressure at Aston Martin after Fernando Alonso bemoans 'faulty chassis'

Aston Martin did win their first point of the season on Sunday

Chris Deeley Editor

Experienced sports writer covering F1 and other motorsports since 2023

Wednesday 10 June 2026 12:59

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Another F1 race, another problem for Aston Martin.

The good news, of course, is that Fernando Alonso scored the team's first point of the year after picking his way through the stoppages and penalties in Monaco on Sunday afternoon.

The bad news is that the Spaniard has said that the race 'confirmed' that the team has fundamental issues with their chassis, which he described as 'faulty'. A team does not want their chassis to be faulty.

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Alonso's words appear to confirm what had been rumoured for some time – that despite the team's headline issue being their Honda power unit, the AMR26 is also far from Adrian Newey's magnum opus as a designer.

Alonso: Each circuit exposes weakness

Aston are expected to bring major updates to the car shortly before the summer break, as Newey and Pedro de la Rosa both confirmed in Monaco, preferring to make one huge overhaul rather than smaller tweaks.

Speaking after the race, and his first point of the season, Alonso said: “In Australia, we saw that the engine was way behind, in China we saw that the power was off. In Canada, we saw that our gearbox from Miami was very bad.

"In Monaco, we confirmed that our chassis is faulty. Each circuit exposes weaknesses, but this gives us a lot of information about what we need to do in the second half of the year.”

Aside from all of that though, Fernando, how's your season going?

As it went, De la Rosa confirmed that a 'fundamental problem' was causing significant understeer around the tight streets of the Principality, telling AS: “We expected to do somewhat better, and we encountered severe understeer mid-corner in the low-speed sections.

"We tried to mitigate it with setup changes, but it's a fundamental problem rather than a setup change. We hadn't experienced such bad understeer in any other race, so it surprised us.”

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F1 Aston Martin Adrian Newey Fernando Alonso