At the first sight of Adrian Newey’s first non-Red Bull designed car for two decades, I was almost transported back to 2022 when Mercedes revealed their revolutionary zero pod F1 car. ‘Extreme’ was the first thought which popped into my head although the all black testing livery did add some menace to the profile of the AMR26.

This car is in fact the first completely designed Newey car since 2018, when he stepped down from his role as the Red Bull technical director to go and work on the Valkyrie supercar project. Adrian had become bored with Formula One given it had become a power formula where his aerodynamic genius was unable to make an impression.

Since 2019, Pierre Wache has been the Red Bull technical lead, with Newey pitching in here and there whilst working part time. Of course Adrian had a big inout into Red Bull’s first ground effect car for 2022, but even then he claimed responsibility just for the front end and the suspension of the RB18.

 

 

 

Newey pushing beyond the time limit

So this year is a big deal for both Newey and the Aston Martin team, particularly since he was appointed team principal towards the ed of last season. Some believe the genius that is Newey will find the role of team boss too all consuming and that his search for perfection will see the team regularly behind schedule.

This was exactly the case come the first pre-season test for Barcelona this season, when Aston Martin were well behind their targets and were only ready to run properly on the fifth and final day. The problem with giving the kid the keys to the sweetshop, is they don’t have the discipline not to gorge themselves and just don’t known when to stop.

Yet when the Aston Martin 2026 car rolled onto the circuit late on Thursday, it caused a collective intake of breath from those privileged few in the paddock. The black livery is designed to hide the detail of certain of the mechanical and aerodynamic components, but it was immediately clear Newey has gone wild on the suspension.

It was his genius work on the suspension for the Red Bull car of 2022, which defeated the rest who all suffered with porpoising. Newey anticipated this and designed accordingly. Yet with the cars for 2026, the suspension is less critical in the grand scheme of things, although the front and rear top pursed wishbones appear are located very high on the chassis and the rear wing support.

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Aston Martin’s radical 2026 car

Given that reducing drag will be a huge factor in 2026 Formula One racing, it appears at first sight that the wishbone positioning has been designed with this in mind. Better TV coverage in Bahrain will give us a better idea of how the car is riding on its suspension.

The concept zero pod has been bandied around since 2022 and whilst the AMR26 has a resemblance to the radical Mercedes design of that year, it is not a true zero. The width of the air intake is similar to other designs, but the vertical aperture is very slim which again may address the issue of drag.

With the engine cover behind cut to the extreme, there is a risk the minimal airflow coming through the side pods will become detached and fail to fins its way to the all important diffuser at the rear.

Yet for all his genius and longevity in F1 together with winning a collective 25 championships with three different teams and seven different drivers, there have been years where Newey has missed the mark spectacularly. Sometimes this has been because his designs were so far ahead of their time, they were difficult to produce but others were just pigs in a poke.

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Honda admit lagging behind

The McLaren MP4-18/MP4-19A were amongst the worst of his offerings. Both these cars had minimalistic side pod designs, but suffered with chronic overheating even causing the gear box to delaminate when it reached 120 degrees celsius.

From the five days of testing in Barcelona, its impossible to tell how much the power units will dominate this season and therefore how critical the aerodynamics will really be. Honda too are known for their slow starts to a new set of engine regulations and have admitted they are behind the curve with their 2026 design.

At the unveiling of their power unit in Tokyo, senior Honda figures conceded paddock rumours of them having PU difficulties mayn’t be unfounded. “Electrification is progressing according to plan,” said Tetsushi Kakuda, project leader. “However, that doesn’t necessarily apply to the combustion engine.”

Koji Watanabe, president of the Honda Racing Corporation went on to admit, the wold continue developing their power unit right up to the deadline set for homologation by the FIA, which is early in March. On the final morning of Barcelona testing, Fernando Alonso clocked a 1m20.795s during his 49 laps completed, over four seconds slower than Charles Leclerc who topped the time sheets.

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Correlation problems in Silverstone

Fernando Alonso will be hoping that Newey has designed a car that at least can win races here and there, given his last Grand Prix victory was 13 years ago in Barcelona. Yet the Spaniards last experience with a Honda in the back of his F1 car did not end well, and his memorable quote about having a GP2 engine in the back still rings in the Japanese manufacturers collective ears.

A further issue for Newey and Aston Martin surrounds the correlation of their design tools with the results which happen on track. Red Bull struggled with this in 2025, but came storming back winning six of the last nine races.

At one of his early outings for Aston Martin in Monaco last year, Newey revealed the all new Silverstone wind tunnel and simulators were not performing as planned. “I think it is fair to say that some of our tools are weak, particularly the driver in the loop simulator. It needs a lot of work because it’s not correlating at all at the moment, which is a fundamental research tool. Not having that is a limitation.

“But we’ve just got to work around it in the meantime and then sort out a plan to get it to where it needs to be. But that’s probably a two-year project in truth.” The driver in loop simulator is both a design tool when modelling the concepts for a new car and also used in how the setup of the car develops throughout a race weekend.

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“Two years” to solve design tool errors

Newey concluded, “So we’re going to be a bit blind on that for some time. We have just got to try to use experience and best judgement. How successful that will be, time will tell.”

Whether Newey and Aston Martin can deliver Alonso a car to break his 13 year drought of Grand Prix wins is yet to be seen, but the team under Newey’s guidance being late for the Barcelona test was eminently predictable, given his penchant for pushing everything to the ultimate limit.

With no Christian Horner, Martin Whitmarsh or Patrick Head to demand certain timescales are met, Newey will be potentially exposed like never before.

 

 

 

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