Fernando Alonso claims 'inspiring' signs as Project Newey finally has liftoff at Aston Martin

Aston Martin F1

Fernando Alonso claims 'inspiring' signs as Project Newey finally has liftoff at Aston Martin

Aston Martin have had a disastrous start to 2026, with the Adrian Newey project in tatters

Sam Cook Digital Journalist

Sports Journalist who has been covering motorsport since 2023

Monday 29 June 2026 21:15

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Two-time F1 world champion Fernando Alonso has been much more positive about his Aston Martin team's performance this weekend, suggesting that project Adrian Newey is well and truly on the right track.

Since design legend Newey joined in March 2025, things have hugely challenging for the team and their drivers Alonso and Lance Stroll.

In 2026 so far, reliability issues have plagued the team with their new Honda power unit, and they have been struggling to finish sessions.

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But even when the team have finished races, they've been right at the back of the pack, and so far, Aston Martin have only scored one point across the season.

While the Honda power unit has come in for the most criticism, Newey's chassis isn't blameless either, with an F1 insider recently saying that even with a Mercedes power unit, the team would still be down battling with the likes of Alpine and Haas.

Despite this wave of negativity, however, 44-year-old Alonso is still trying to be positive, having noticed some improvements with his AMR26 throughout the Austrian Grand Prix weekend.

He went out in Q1 once again this weekend, but was immediately happy with how the car had performed, suggesting that he had managed to get it into a consistent window where he could then build lap time from.

Alonso positive about Aston Martin's progress

"Obviously, still very tough for us and I'm not really competitive, but I've seen some positives this weekend," Alonso told media after qualifying in Austria.

"I think the team was improving session after session with the deployment, driveability, with Honda as well, gear shifting, there were positives run after run, and now in qualifying the car was consistent and had the same deployment all through the lap.

"Simple things but we were not able to achieve those in previous weekends and here we did it so everyone is working flat out, we are at the back of the grid, but everyone is giving their 100 per cent as if we're fighting for podiums, so this is encouraging and this is also inspiring.

"It's difficult, and no one will help us, it's a very competitive environment so we need to find the improvements ourselves, everything is in our hands and mentally we need to be strong."

F1 RESULTS: Austrian Grand Prix final classificiation with all penalties applied

F1 Aston Martin Adrian Newey Fernando Alonso