Can Aston Martin fight back?
The 2026 season for Aston Martin has not been one to go into the record books. Despite the star signing of Adrian Newey, whose cars have won 12 constructors championships with Williams, Mclaren and Red Bull Racing, his new team Aston Martin, have so far this season been unable to complete the majority of races without it ending in a DNF.
To try and correct this and win more points than the singular point scored by Fernando Alonso in Monaco, Aston Martin has worked to bring in a new super 2-step upgrade package. The first step being led by Newey was brought in for Hungary and focuses on weight and aerodynamics included 16 new upgrades, the most seen this season out of all the teams. The upgrades include significant revisions to:
Beam wing and Rear wing,
Brake duct and suspension and end plate
Cooling louvres
Floor body, edge and fences
The nose
The sidepod inlet
Front wing, its endplate and the front brake duct
Diffuser
Engine cover
So, can Newey strike gold again?
Adrian Newey, known as the “Einstein of F1”, had a huge winning streak from 1992-1998 with Williams and 6 more winning years with Red Bull Racing but, has his luck come to an end? Based on his impressive record and knowledge Aston Martin secured his services with a rumoured salary of £20-£30 million a year. However, he has not had a good start with the drivers only being able to finish 2 races with both cars. What's more, since pre-testing in Bahrain Aston Martin has consistently been “4.1 seconds” off the race leader's pace, which in the world of F1 where positions are determined by tenths and thousandths of a second is a performance catastrophe.
The upgrade package has been put in place with the goal of trying to make Aston Martin competitive again and according to Newey the overall “target is to get very close to the weight limit” to minimise time lost under acceleration.
However, will these upgrades truly help? To answer that even Newey himself doesn’t know as he is “reluctant to put specific numbers out there”, showcasing how out of depth the Aston Martin really is.
Following the first race post-upgrades, we have seen an insight into what the upgrades are like when put to use in race conditions. The race ended with a P13 and P14 from the drivers, while it isn’t in the points, it is a huge step up from not even being able to finish the race with both cars. This shows the successes of step 1 of the upgrades which makes you wonder, can Aston Martin start to fight back?
Step 2 of the Upgrades - Honda’s shot
The next step in upgrades will fixate purely on the new Honda engine. Although a new engine partner for Aston Martin, Honda has plenty of F1 history with big highs and lows. While it has had its successes with Red Bull racing between 2019-2021, which helped Max Verstappen winning his first World Championship, Honda has also had a lot of negative press, especially regarding when Mclaren built a strategic relationship with Honda from 2015-2017.
Due to a rushed entry into F1 in 2015, Honda was underprepared in comparison to its competitors who had already tested and trialled their hybrid systems for a year. This led to Honda creating a very poor engine that Mclaren lost patience with in 2017, cancelling the contract and inflicting a great financial burden upon themselves as Honda provided them with free engines and sponsorship money. Mclaren moved to Renault customer engines requiring them to pay for them.
Honda are tight-lipped about the technical details and scale of improvements. Only time will tell on whether the two upgrades combined will work together and bridge the 4.1 second gap and allow Aston Martin to try and move back towards the front of the field.