Marko suspicious of Aston Martin revival – Having finished the last two Formula One seasons in fifth place, Aston Martin were again this season expected to retain their place as the ‘best of the rest’ outside the top four teams, yet their start to the season left a lot to be desired.
Lance Stroll opened the year well for the Silverstone based team, claiming sixth place in difficult conditions in Melbourne before scoring two points in China next time out. Meanwhile Fernando Alonso wasn’t fairing so well retiring from both of the opening rounds having crashed out in Australia and suffering mechanical issues in Shanghai.
Alonso would fail to make the top ten for the first eight rounds of the year, his first points ironically coming at the Spanish Grand Prix. Stroll too saw a drought of nine rounds after his early success before a seventh place at the British Grand Prix returned Aston Martin into a more competitive frame.
Aston Martin stun the field
With modifications to the car coming late before the summer break, Aston Martin stunned the field in Budapest, with Alonso and Stroll qualifying 5th and 6th respectively. This was to be their strongest race of the season to date as the pair finished in 5th and 7th finishing ahead of the likes of Max Verstappen and Lewis Hamilton with a tremendous haul of 16 points.
With Williams early season form having tailed off as they focus their resources on 2026, Aston Martin are closing in on the fifth ranked team and sit just 18 points behind the iconic British racing marque. The Zandvoort circuit has similar characteristics to the high downforce Hungaroring where Aston had their best result of the year.
Williams boss James Vowles described it on Friday as ‘a notch down from the Hungarian levels of downforce,’ which does not suit the slicker less draggy FW47. For Aston However the track layout looks perfect for their car, with both Alonso and Stroll towards the top of the timesheets on Friday.
Alonso less than a tenth behind Norris
Red Bull advisor Helmut Marko has admitted surprise at the sudden step forward from Aston Martin, whose performance in Dutch Grand Prix Friday practice suggested a potential challenge for the front rows of the grid. The Silverstone team, buoyed by Fernando Alonso and Lance Stroll’s strong showings, appeared to have rediscovered the form they showed in 2023, where the Spaniard claimed six podiums in the first seven races.
In FP1 at Zandvoort, Alonso and Stroll were fourth and third fastest, confirming the AMR25’s comfort on tighter, twistier circuits. The momentum carried into FP2, where Alonso split McLaren’s Lando Norris and Oscar Piastri at the top of the timesheets. The three were separated by less than a tenth of a second, underlining how close the competition has become. Stroll, however, derailed his own session with a crash just 11 minutes into the running, leaving Aston Martin’s mechanics with overnight repairs.
Marko noted that only a few races ago, Aston Martin looked adrift of the midfield. At Spa, Alonso finished a lowly 17th, yet two weeks later the team is comfortably fighting at the sharp end. Asked if Adrian Newey’s arrival earlier this year might already be visible in the car’s performance, Marko was cautious but intrigued.
Piastri mistakes masked whilst Norris gets the blame
Marko suspects Newey’s influence
“I don’t know, but Newey is always an advantage,” he told Sky DE. “The jump is really huge. At Spa, they were last or penultimate, and now they are regularly driving in the points. Surely that points to someone there having some influence.”
While Newey’s official role at Aston Martin is focused on the 2026 project, his presence alone has raised speculation that he may already be leaving fingerprints on current development. Marko’s remarks suggest that Red Bull, though not panicked, is keeping a close eye on how quickly their former technical guru’s new team finds momentum.
For Red Bull, practice offered mixed results. Max Verstappen finished fifth, six tenths off Norris, while Yuki Tsunoda placed seventh, nine tenths down. Marko described the outing as “better than Hungary,” though he admitted that was not difficult to achieve after Red Bull’s struggles at the Hungaroring. He identified harder tyre compounds as playing more to Red Bull’s strengths, and said the team had yet to fully unlock its balance.
Newey returns to haunt Red Bull
Looking ahead to qualifying and the race, Marko predicted a tight battle behind McLaren. “Aston Martin is surprisingly strong, and Mercedes is more or less on par. Ferrari seems to have some more problems. It might be a battle between Aston Martin, Mercedes and us,” he said.
And so, the spectre of Adrian Newey returns to haunt Red Bull far sooner than anyone in Milton Keynes would have preferred. Officially, Newey is buried deep in Aston Martin’s 2026 project, sketching future ideas that will sprout wings in next season. Unofficially, if you ask Helmut Marko, someone has sprinkled pixie dust on the AMR25 and suddenly Alonso is back in the mix. Coincidence? Perhaps. Or perhaps Aston Martin has already been blessed with the genius touch that once delivered Red Bull an era of dominance.
Of course, the idea of Newey secretly lifting Aston Martin overnight from back markers to contenders has all the charm of a Formula One conspiracy theory. If results keep trending upward, Lawrence Stroll may soon insist that his investment in Newey has already paid dividends, even if the ink is barely dry on the contract. And if Alonso finds himself on the podium this weekend, expect Red Bull’s garage to go very quiet whenever someone mentions Adrian’s name.
Russell explosive Antonelli statement
Stroll remains fragile
Stroll’s crash, meanwhile, offered a timely reminder that for every surge forward, Aston Martin still carries fragility. The Canadian’s habit of expensive interruptions means that, even if Newey is working his magic, the repair bills may yet undo some of the progress. Aston Martin’s mechanics will certainly be cursing the irony that just as their car looked competitive again, they were handed a late-night rebuild job.
Lost in the excitement of Aston Martin’s resurgence and Red Bull’s worries is Ferrari, who appear to have perfected the art of being nowhere in particular. While McLaren dominate, Aston Martin revive, and Mercedes hover, Ferrari seem locked in the role of providing colour for midfield graphics. Marko’s dismissive “some more problems” sums it up neatly: Ferrari remain a talking point, but not one that inspires fear.
The big question to be answered today is whether Alonso can like Samson raise his game one more time and go one better than in practice, pipping both the McLaren’s to pole position. The last time the Spaniard started at the head of the field was 13 years ago at the German Grand Prix in Hockenheim.
Reaction to Wolff’s 2026 400 km/h claims
Mercedes team boss Toto Wolff has set tongues wagging in the Formula One paddock after suggesting that the combination of 2026 power units and the radical aerodynamics of the next-generation cars could push top speeds as high as 400 km/h.
The fastest ever speed recorded by a Formula One car is 397.36 km/h delivered by Honda back in 2002. In the end, while they fell just shy of the 400 km/h target, the BAR Honda team achieved something remarkable. They had created the fastest F1 car ever to run on the Bonneville salt flats, demonstrating the ingenuity and dedication that defines motorsport engineering.
Of course this was a straight line test of an F1 car and it required the team to run a shadow rear wing, with little downforce and drag. Whilst it complied with F1 regulations at the time, a fin needed to be added to prevent the car from spinning at high speed…. READ MORE
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