Aston Martin offer an update on 2026 progress – The Formula one paddock continues to propagate the narrative that it is Mercedes are ahead in the race to build the all new power units for 2026. Yet the former world champions have released little information on how their programmes are developing, both on the all new chassis and engines for the huge regulation change coming at the end of this season.
Its assumed Mercedes will emerge top of the pile based on the fact this is what happened the last time the powertrain regulations were overhauled. With so many changes to the car and engine design rules in the pipeline, it is likely one team will emerge as significant front runners.
Adrian Newey confirmed this was his view back in January, prior to formally joining Aston Martin. “I think there has to be a big chance that it’s an engine formula at the start,” he told AMuS. “The reality is I can’t remember another time in Formula 1 when both the chassis regulations and the engine regulations have changed simultaneously and where, in this case, the chassis regulations have been very much written to try to compensate for the power unit regulations. So it’s an extra dimension.”
Aston becomes an F1 works team
Aston Martin have also recruited the man credited with the all conquering Mercedes V6 Turbo launched in 2014 and Andy Cowell is now the CEO and the team principal at the Silverstone based F1 team. In Cowell and Newey, team owner Lawrence Stroll believes he has assembled a ‘dream team’ and now Cowell breaks cover to explain the progress the team is making towards 2026.
The team will move from being Mercedes customer outfit, to one which has its own dedicated power unit supplier, often referred to as a full works team. The advantages this brings are simple, giving the team greater control over car development, deeper integration amongst the two sets of engineers (chassis/engine) and an increased access to resources from Honda HQ and cutting edge technologies.
Yet the journey is not for the faint hearted as McLaren demonstrated last time they attempted to become a works team with Honda back in 2015. Having sold their works outfit for £1 to Ross Brawn for the 2010 season, Honda had been out of the sport for half a decade.
They were late to the party in developing their all new 2014 V6 turbo hybrid powertrain which was launched in conjunction with McLaren for the 2015 season. The Woking based team finished the year second to last with just 27 points, only ahead of the soon to be wound up Marussia F1 team.
Honda learn from their mistakes
With the relationship between Honda and McLaren deteriorating, the decision was made to part company. Honda became the works team partner for the then Toro Rosso racing outfit in 2018, with Red Bull being supplied the year following.
Their success was evident quickly, when in the third year of the relationship between Honda and Red Bull, Max Verstappen claimed a thrilling victory in the drivers’ championship – power by the Japanese auto manufacturer. Yet as has been their want during decades of F1 competition, the Japanese company decided it would withdraw from F1 once again in 2017, much to Red Bull’s dismay who then decided to build their own powertrains from 2026 onwards.
With the regulations for the new power units becoming more to Honda’s liking, in 2022 they reversed their decision and signed up as a supplier of engines from next season onwards. Having offered to continue in partnership with Red Bull, they were rejected and have now formed a relationship with the Aston Martin team.
Cowell is more than satisfied with their current progress of the two operations and explains to f1.com how the collaboration is moving ahead. “The work’s been going on for many, many months so the design of the Honda power unit is very much fitting hand in glove with the back of our monocoque and the front of our transmission,” Cowell reveals.
Honda collaboration coming together
Further, the team and Honda have advanced their testing both at the HQ in Silverstone and back home in Japan. “The hardware has been tested in Sakura and our transmission has been tested here at Silverstone as well as on the back of the power unit in Sakura.
“There are daily meetings and then there are regular more senior level meetings to check in to make sure that we’re all working in the right direction.”
Aston Martin F1 have undergone the biggest of transformations over the past few seasons. The ageing Silverstone factory has been replaced by a state of the art $200m facility in Silverstone. This includes an all important new wind tunnel, together with revised simulation tools and organisational structures, something Cowell reports is moving along nicely.
“It is a transformation going from a customer team to a works team at the same time as all the regulation changes and the new factory and all the new equipment,” Cowell said. “It’s a huge transformation for everybody in our team.
Two years to fix correlation issues
“But I’m really impressed with the enthusiasm that everybody’s got. Everybody wants to get to the front. Everybody wants to do well. Everybody’s open-minded to making changes in the way we work in responsibilities and so on. Everybody’s busy, everybody’s making lots of change, but it’s enjoyable change.”
Of course such a massive change for an organisation will present its challenges as Adrian Newey revealed during the Monaco Grand Prix. “It’s fair to say that some of our tools are weak,” he explained in his first visit to a race in Aston Martin colours. “Particularly the driver-in-the-loop simulator needs a lot of work because it’s not correlating at all at the moment, which is a fundamental research tool.”
In an F1 era where track testing is extremely limited, the DIL simulators are designed to replicate the real life on track situation, offering the ability to tweak a number of variables to represent the actual performance of the car on track.
More worryingly for Aston Martin is the timescale Newey believes is required to improve the correlation between the factory simulations and on track actuals. The tools Newey refers to he states will require a “plan to get it where it needs to be, but that’s probably a two-year project in truth.”
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