Adrian Newey makes bold ‘never been done’ claim about 2026 Aston Martin F1 car

Famed Formula 1 designer and Aston Martin team principal Adrian Newey claims the squad’s 2026 car has “quite a few features that haven’t necessarily been done before”.

The Newey-penned AMR26 broke cover last week at the Barcelona pre-season shakedown, following delays to the build of the new car.

The team’s new challenger turned heads with its aggressive sidepod design, as well as its engine cover and airbox set-up.

In a new Undercut interview released by Aston Martin, Newey opens up on the design process of the AMR26.

“I never look at any of my designs as aggressive,” he said.

“I just get on with things and pursue what we feel is the right direction.

“The direction we've taken could certainly be interpreted as aggressive.

“It's got quite a few features that haven't necessarily been done before. Does that make it aggressive? Possibly. Possibly not.”

He added: “The car is tightly packaged.

“Much more tightly packaged than I believe has been attempted at Aston Martin Aramco before.

“This has required a very close working relationship with the mechanical designers to achieve the aerodynamic shapes we wanted.

“But I have to say that all the mechanical designers here have really embraced that philosophy.

“It hasn't made their life easy, quite the opposite, but they've really risen to the challenge.”

Adrian Newey details development headaches of 2026 F1 car

Newey admits the AMR26 project was “four months” behind its rivals due to not being able to get a model in the wind tunnel until April, while he only joined the team last March.

“2026 is probably the first time in the history of F1 that the power unit regulations and chassis regulations have changed at the same time.

“It's a completely new set of rules, which is a big challenge for all the teams, but perhaps more so for us.

“The AMR Technology Campus is still evolving, the CoreWeave Wind Tunnel wasn't on song until April, and I only joined the team last March, so we've started from behind, in truth.

“It's been a very compressed timescale and an extremely busy 10 months.

“The reality is that we didn’t get a model of the '26 car into the wind tunnel until mid-April, whereas most, if not all of our rivals, would have had a model in the wind tunnel from the moment the 2026 aero testing ban ended at the beginning of January last year.

“That put us on the back foot by about four months, which has meant a very, very compressed research and design cycle.

“The car only came together at the last minute, which is why we were fighting to make it to the Barcelona shakedown.”