The Silverstone-based squad will begin its new partnership with the Japanese manufacturer at this weekend’s Australian Grand Prix, but a troubled pre-season has left question marks over both reliability and outright performance of the AMR26.
Running was severely limited across testing in Bahrain, where Fernando Alonso stopped on track during a race simulation and Lance Stroll completed just a handful of laps on the final day amid ongoing power unit investigations at Honda’s Sakura headquarters.
Vibration issues affecting the battery were identified, with no immediate fix available.
So bad are Aston Martin’s woes that reports have emerged that the team may elect to retire its cars from the Australian Grand Prix after just a few laps.
Brundle expressed serious concerns about the team’s competitiveness.
“It’s clear to me that the correlation between the wind tunnel – the digital wind tunnel, the CFD – and the stopwatch on the racetrack, it looks like it’s miles out, because the car didn’t exactly look stuck to the road when it was running,” he said.
Buy tickets
“Honda was pulling out, they came back in. They seemed a long way behind on battery recovery – on the power recovery – and reliability, they’re churning through their cost cap on the motor side already, and with parts and batteries.
“The big problem they have is that four teams were charging around with the Mercedes power unit. Can you imagine, after nine days of testing, how much data Mercedes has?
“Ferrari has three teams out there. Audi has done well, but they’ve only got themselves, and Honda has only got Aston Martin.
“So if the Aston Martin is not going around the track, which it wasn’t, by and large, they’ve got nil data. It’s a snowball effect for them, and they’re in dire trouble.
“I’m sure they’ve got the resource and the brain power to do something about that. But it’s going to take some time.”
View this post on Instagram
Team representative Pedro de la Rosa described the winter as “extremely tough” and admitted the team is still trying to understand the fundamentals of its all-new package under F1’s sweeping 2026 regulation changes.
“There are so many things on the list to be tested that we haven’t had time to – physically no time,” De la Rosa told F1.com.
“We have identified clearly what the biggest priorities are, but then you go deeper into these priorities and there’s a long list of other little things.
“I think it’s a bit of every area; it’s impossible to say it’s just one area – there are a lot of things.”
The team has introduced its own gearbox and rear suspension for the new rules cycle, while also integrating Honda power alongside new lubricants and sustainable fuel.
De la Rosa acknowledged both sides began their 2026 preparations later than rivals after Honda’s initial withdrawal from Formula 1 and the delayed start of Adrian Newey’s technical leadership.
“It is fair to say that when they decided not to continue in F1, and then they changed their mind, this increased a bit, or delayed a bit, the process of starting to work on the 2026 regulations,” he said.
“It’s not ideal, but that’s something they’ve already admitted, and we can only look ahead.
“At the moment, we’re in the phase of understanding what we have more than the optimisation part of it.”
Despite the setbacks, De la Rosa insisted the team has clarity on its direction under Newey.
“I’m really impressed with Adrian,” he said.
“Listening to him, what a clear vision he has of what he wants from the car, and what we need to improve on the car, gives a very good guideline to everyone in the team to work in one direction.
“We might not be where we want to be, but we know exactly what to do.”
De la Rosa added that the team’s objective at Albert Park is to run reliably, gather data and establish a baseline for development.
“The honest answer is I don’t really know – no one really knows,” De la Rosa said when asked what to expect in Australia.
“What we know is that it’s not where we wanted to be, but race-by-race we will be improving, improving, improving.
“We just have to make the long-term as short-term as possible, really. In motorsport, things work like that, but we will definitely get there.”
2026 F1 Australian Grand Prix – Schedule, how to watch, TV times & more
Discussion about this post