Jolyon Palmer delivers brutal verdict on Aston Martin’s nightmare 2026 F1 start

Former Formula 1 driver and F1 pundit Jolyon Palmer has given a damning verdict of Aston Martin's start to the 2026 season, claiming they don't talk about the Silverstone outfit "because they're not even in contention".

Aston Martin entered the season with Adrian Newey as both team principal and managing technical partner alongside a new power unit partnership with Honda. Expectations were high for the Lawrence Stroll-owned team, but it quickly ran into major issues - one of which was intense vibrations.

"On the positive, we haven't had to watch it too much because it's not been on track that much," Palmer said in an F1 season start debrief video.

"That's the other thing. The reliability is so poor. We don't talk about them because they're not even in contention. What I do like is Fernando's race starts because that's the moment where you see there's still fight in him.

"There's still the racecraft; it'll pop up in the top 10. You haven't seen him all weekend. They've just been plumbed towards the bottom with Cadillac, two of the last three or four slots, and then suddenly you're like, 'Hang on, Fernando's still racing. He's up in the top 10.'

"So, that's the good bit. All the negative is just overwhelmingly bad though, isn't it? I mean, there's no other good aspect. And the one good aspect is something that we've known already for like 20 years."

Fernando Alonso, Aston Martin Racing

Photo by: Alastair Staley / LAT Images via Getty Images

F1 commentator Alex Jacques added: "They can only get better. That's the reality of it for Aston. This is as close to a worst-case scenario as I can remember.

"There's stats flying around that they're further back with Alonso's deficit to pole position than they were in the McLaren-Honda era. So, we thought that was a very, very unusual nightmare collaboration between those two."

After the first three rounds of the season, Aston Martin sits last in the constructors' standings with zero points.