Aston Martin F1 team plotting huge boost as upgrade timeline revealed

Aston Martin

Aston Martin plotting huge boost as F1 upgrade timeline revealed

Aston Martin have picked up a single point in the 2026 season

Matthew Hobkinson Lead Editor

F1 Editor & Journalist

Wednesday 17 June 2026 08:14 Updated: 09:31

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Aston Martin look set to introduce fresh upgrades to their car ahead of the summer break in what would be a huge boost to the struggling F1 team.

To say things have gone badly wrong at Aston Martin is an understatement. The season has been a disaster and right now there is very little in the form of redemption for Lawrence Stroll's team.

It is a far cry from the hopes and dreams that the team had at the start of the year, as talk of podiums and championships were whipped up by fans over the partnership of Adrian Newey and Honda.

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Now, seven races into the season with a solitary point to their name, the stark reality has hit home like a freight train.

But the team aren't giving up hope just yet.

Aston Martin upgrades on the horizon

While race wins and podiums might be a pipe dream for the foreseeable, Newey's team will want to start by closing the gap from the very back of the pack to the bottom of the midfield.

If the team can somehow find a couple of seconds of lap time - something which is no mean feat in F1 - they could start to look at picking up the scraps of the final few points positions in races.

Which although might not sound like much, it does offer some level of stability and positive momentum.

Lance Stroll is one of four drivers yet to score a point

Improvements in lap time come with upgrades, and in his latest Q&A session for BBC Sport, their F1 correspondent Andrew Benson addressed the timeline that awaits Aston Martin.

"They are falling back because they have so far brought almost no performance upgrades to their car, while all the other teams have," he wrote.

"That's because they have decided the best use of their resources in the context of the cost cap is to introduce one major upgrade in one go, rather than drip-feed smaller ones over a series of races.

"That upgrade is expected around the time of the Belgian Grand Prix - in three races' time."

Newey and Aston Martin are coming with big upgrades.

While this is good news for Newey, Benson did go on to reveal that a new engine upgrade is not expected until after the summer break - at the Dutch Grand Prix.

"Aston Martin's problem is that even if that aerodynamic upgrade makes the car two seconds a lap faster - and if it did, it would be one hell of an upgrade - it will only move them up to Racing Bulls/Audi territory," he continued.

"That's at least respectable rather than embarrassing, which is what they are now, but it's still a long way from where they want to be."