Last Updated on April 1 2026, 9:12 pm
The reality of Aston Martin’s start to the 2026 Formula One season could not be further than the expectations which preceded the launch of the AMR26 racing machine. Paddock experts believed the ‘dream team’ combination of the arrival of Adrian Newey, a works powertrain exclusive relationship with Honda together with eye watering spend on the team’s infrastructure would see the Silverstone based team as genuine title contenders.
Rarely in F1 has the hype and the reality been divided by such a chasm as Aston Martin’s disorganisation became patently clear to their rivals and fans of the sport. Genius car designer Adrian Newey stepped into the breach as team principal in November, when Andy Cowell decided his skills were better served working with Honda in a day to day role at their Sakura base.
Yet the Genius that is Newey the car designer did not translate well into the leadership role required of a team principal. This was evident in that Aston Martin were not ready to take part in the Barcelona pre-season shakedown and arrived pretty much with four days of the test complete.
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Aston Martin cost Honda valuable testing time
This delay cost Honda valuable on track testing time which saw Mercedes rack up more than 500 laps trialing their new power unit, whilst Aston Martin and Honda managed around just 10% of that distance. This meant the vibration issue which has plagued the drivers of the AMR26 was not even properly recognised in Barcelona and it was only by the time the team had completed the first day at the Bahrain pre-season test, the impact of the issue was fully realised.
By now the likes of Mercedes had completed some 12 Grand Prix distances, whilst Honda had less than 2 under their belt. The vibrations were making the AMR26 undriveable for the Aston Martin drivers and come the season opening weekend in Australia, neither car made it to the chequered flag.
A week later in China saw a similar result, as Fernando Alonso was viewed from his cockpit camera flexing his hands to ease the sensation from the vibrations. He retired the car on lap 34 although he suggested had he been in a competitive situation he would have persisted longer.
As Adrian Newey threw Honds under the bus in Melbourne, claiming it was they who were responsible only for the vibrations the drivers were suffering, Honda hinted at the fact the vibration issues were not simply sourced in their power unit.
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Alonso reports vibration improvements
Since his Melbourne outburst, Newey was not present in either China or Japan and come Honda’s home race, HRC boss Koji Wanatabe was definitive that the vibration issue was a combined effort between Honda and Aston Martin. He cited Newey’s right hand man Enrico Cardile as being the chief point of contact at Aston Martin work ing to solve the issue.
What was not known in Japan was that Aston Martin trialed an upgrade designed to suppress the vibrations the drivers were experiencing. Following the first practice session Fernando Alonso reported “the car felt completely normal, nearly no vibrations”, but the double world champion appeared bemused after qualifying telling assembled media he had “the same vibrations as ever in qualifying. We didn’t change anything and that was a little bit difficult to understand”.
Reports have now emerged from paddock sources which suggest the Aston Martin solution to the vibration problem was some kind of change to the steering column which dampened the vibrations in the chassis to make the driving experience manageable. The team’s trackside officer Mike Krack revealed after the race in Japan, “we had some countermeasures here” and “we tested something in the sessions that was a small improvement, but we could not race it”.
This is clearly why Alonso reported the vibrations return post qualifying and in the race. “Bringing new parts always brings a risk, so you need to consider that when you make reliability decisions,” Krack added. “They were new parts, so we decided not to go into the race with them, but I think it shows some promise.”
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Aston Martin bizarre decisions
Once again, Aston Martin appear to have made two bizarre decisions. Firstly, their drivers – in particular Fernando Alonso – appeared to know nothing of the trialed component. It is possible that given the spaniard was absent on Thursday due to the birth of his first child he was outside the loop on the matter.
Even so the pre-practice briefing session would normally have covered such an important upgrade and test component. After the practice session Alonso appeared to be in the dark stating he did “not really” understand why the vibrations were now absent.
The second strange decision was to remove the component for qualifying and the race. This was the perfect opportunity for Honda and Aston Martin to understand the impact of the test part under the proper duress of the high speed one lap qualifying and the endurance nature of the 53 lap race.
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Finishing the Japanese GP vital for Honda
Presumably the reasons were based on the sensitives of Honda their engine partner who at their home race in Japan needed at least one of their powered cars to complete the full race distance. However, nervous tension increased in the Japanese manufacturers motorhome as LanceStroll was forced to retire from the Grand Prix on lap 30 due to a water pressure issue.
Fernando Alonso did make the chequered flag, given Aston Martin and Honda their first classified finish of 2026 from six starts. That said the Honda power unit was embarrassingly slow as the Spaniard completed the race on Sunday a lap down from winner Kimi Antonelli.
“We have many boxes to tick and this was one of them: finishing a race distance,” said Fernando Alonso after the Grand Prix. “We didn’t manage it in Australia, China or at the tests. So it’s the very first time and hopefully the team has enough data now to understand the car a little bit more and get in a better place for the next one.”
The de facto trackside team principal, Mike Krack, did reveal the team believes the vibration issues will be banished for good come the next weekend of racing. “I am quite confident that for Miami we can do a step that [means] we are not speaking about it anymore,” he concluded.
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Last Updated on April 1 2026, 8:25 am
Having watched Formula One for over 40 years, I don’t remember the sport getting itself into such a mess as it has with the all new 2026 regulations. Of course there were the tragedies which saw the death of Ayrton Senna and Jules Bianchi together with other one off farcical situations like the 2005 US Grand Prix where just six cars started the race.
Other silly ideas included aggregate qualifying back in 2005 where drivers ran one lap on Saturday afternoon and another on Sunday and the grid was set by their total of the two runs. In 2016, elimination qualifying was tried, where the cars went out all together and every 90 seconds the slowest was eliminated.
Both formats lasted a handful of race weekends before being dropped. There are a number of other ‘unusual’ efforts made by the FIA which led to driver boycott in Imola in 1982 together with the two lap race in Belgium in 2021 which saw George Russell claim his first podium in a Williams F1 car…. CONTINUE READING
A.J. Hunt is Senior Editor at TJ13 and a career journalist with experience in both print and digital sports media. Having trained in investigative journalism and contributed to several European sports outlets, Hunt brings rigour and polish to every article. His role is to sharpen analysis, check facts and ensure TJ13’s daily output meets the highest editorial standards.
