Adrian Newey makes honest Aston Martin F1 2026 admission

Adrian Newey has admitted Aston Martin’s late start on their 2026 F1 car has left them “on the back foot” for the upcoming campaign.

Aston Martin revealed their official livery for the 2026 season on Monday evening after the AMR26 debuted in an all-black livery when it hit the track late on the penultimate day of the Barcelona shakedown at the end of January.

Newey, who has taken over as team principal as well as overseeing the design of Aston Martin’s 2026 challenger, recently revealed that his team’s car started wind tunnel development four months later than their rivals.

The legendary F1 designer has now admitted that the late start is “bound to” impact Aston Martin heading into the new season.

"It's bound to, to be perfectly honest,” Newey told Sky Sports News when asked if the delay would cost Aston Martin.

”We got in the tunnel mid to late April, as opposed to January 2 for everybody else. But more than that, everybody else has been working on their CFD [Computational Fluid Dynamics] and general layouts and mechanical layouts way, way before us, so we're starting on the back foot and we'll do our best to catch up.

“We've been working on updates initially for race one, and now thinking about subsequent updates, which is the nature of Formula 1 in any case, but also this very new of regulations and a car that's had a very compressed cycle.”

The 2026 rules overhaul has been viewed as a key opportunity for Aston Martin to achieve their lofty ambitions of becoming world championship contenders in the coming years.

Two-time world champion Fernando Alonso has warned that Aston Martin may have to be patient before they can compete for wins and world titles.

"I feel that it's an important moment in the project of Aston Martin," Alonso told Sky Sports News. "We finally have our facilities completed. We have our wind tunnel now designing the car, not a third party one anymore.

“We have our own gearbox for the first time - that's a big challenge but in a way it gives you the freedom of designing a key component of the car for the very first time. We have Honda as a partner, so all the pieces now are coming together.

"Our biggest challenge is glueing everything, and timing, especially for me. Coming from seventh in the Constructors' Championship last year, we need to walk before running and we need to make the steps one at a time.

"We are competitors, we want to win, we want to fight for big things, and I think that requires a little bit of time, but we want to make this as short as possible.”