Aston Martin had "huge changes" to overcome to make Barcelona F1 shakedown

Like Indiana Jones snatching his misplaced fedora from under a rapidly descending stone doorway, Aston Martin’s timing was dramatically close to the edge this week. The team arrived for the Barcelona ‘shakedown week’ late on the third of the five days and only achieved a handful of laps when its AMR26 emerged from the garage on the afternoon of the fourth.

Aston Martin had admitted – albeit quietly and grudgingly – that it was likely to be late and therefore miss at least one of its three permitted days of running. But in truth, this was always going to be on the cards given the involvement of talismanic engineer Adrian Newey, a creative and competitive force to be reckoned with – and a man with a history of pushing development as long as possible so as to arrive with a more mature and competitive package than his rivals.

Lance Stroll, Aston Martin

Photo by: Aston Martin Racing

The AMR26 has come together over the past few months against a tapestry of further upheavals behind the scenes, as team principal Andy Cowell was moved sideways into an engine-liaison role and Newey added some of his duties to his own portfolio. And along with the challenges of finding innovative solutions to the challenges faced by the all-new technical regulations for 2026, Aston Martin also had to integrate with a new engine partner, Honda.

This also entailed building its own gearbox after years of buying in the Mercedes powertrain as a package, which also dictated the mounting points of the rear suspension.

"We obviously are in a bit of a unique situation," said chief trackside engineer Mike Krack after the AMR26 ran for the first time on Thursday afternoon.

"We welcome Honda, our new engine partner, our new power unit partner. We have made our first gearbox in very many, many years, and you pair that with new chassis regulations, new power unit regulations – so basically you could say it's the worst case or the best case, but it's a huge change for us as a team, to be a works team, a factory team, together with these regulations.

"Then we have Adrian on board, so it's all very exciting and a lot of change, and then Formula 1 is not waiting for you, so you have to be ready. We were a little bit late, but we made it to this test, so I think we can be proud and happy of that achievement."

The AMR26 features a number of distinctive solutions that bear the fingerprints not just of Newey but also chief technical officer Enrico Cardile, who joined Aston Martin from Ferrari last year. The triangular airbox arrangement with ‘Viking horns’ mounted alongside bears some familial resemblance with the first two ground-effect Ferraris raced under Cardile’s aegis; but readers with longer memories will recall Newey employing a similar arrangement on the 2005 McLaren MP4-20.

2005 McLaren MP4-20, the last McLaren fully overseen by Adrian Newey, featured 'Viking horns' beside the airbox

Photo by: Getty Images

Honda’s contribution will be interesting since this is in effect an all-new project. The company has a long-standing culture of incubating in-house talent by picking the brightest and best engineering graduates and essentially throwing them in at the deep end. Those responsible for bringing its most recent hybrid power unit to a successful state with Red Bull have been dispersed within the company, partly a consequence of Honda quitting Formula 1 in 2021 and then reversing that decision 18 months later.

"When you have such a long relationship with the previous partner, you need to know the [new] people, you need to learn the names, how you work with each other, what are your expectations, what are the responsibilities, and all these kind of things," said Krack. 

"But it was a good start, a few smiles between ourselves and them, and it's our goal, obviously, to use this time now to integrate as much as we can, to learn how to work together.

"But I'm very confident. They [Honda] are racers, they are very open, you can challenge them, it's really nice, and I'm looking forward to continuing the relationship."