Adrian Newey reveals why Aston Martin delayed AMR26 wind tunnel work

Adrian Newey has shut down speculation on what he called Aston Martin’s “rightly or wrongly” decision to put the AMR26 in the wind tunnel, a decision that put the team on the back foot in the build-up to F1’s new technical era.

Aston Martin’s F1 2026 pre-season preparations were blighted when the team missed most of the opening days of ‘Shakedown Week’ at the Circuit de Barcelona-Catalunya. The AMR26 finally broke cover on the penultimate afternoon of the shakedown with Lance Stroll at the wheel before Fernando Alonso took over for the final day.

Adrian Newey explains Aston Martin AMR26 wind tunnel delay

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Newey, who only started work with the team in March last year, blamed a delay in getting the AMR26 into the wind tunnel.

Teams were permitted to begin working on their all-new 2026 cars in January last year, but it wasn’t until April that a model of Aston Martin‘s AMR26 entered the wind tunnel.

“The reality is that we didn’t get a model of the ’26 car into the wind tunnel until mid-April,” said Newey at the time, “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 team quickly realised that there were several problems with the chassis as it was overweight and also lacking in downforce. Vibrations from the Honda power unit compounded the problems.

F1 2026: The season’s winners and losers

The results of the F1 2026 championship

The F1 2026 Drivers’ and Constructors’ Championship standings

But while it was initially speculated that the delay in getting the car into the wind tunnel was down to the timing of Newey’s arrival, with the design guru only joining the team in March, Newey says there wasn’t a model for him to look at on his first day at Aston Martin’s factory.

That, though, was a deliberate decision as the team waited for its own wind tunnel to fire up.

“The timeline really was that there wasn’t a model ready to get going,” he said.

“At the same time, we made the decision, rightly or wrongly, to delay for two weeks or so until we had our own tunnel commissioned, rather than starting in Brackley for a very short period, only to move again.

“So that was the timeline behind it.

“But it was a big build-up process, I would say. Everything was just on the back foot in that sense. You do what you can, and you just get on with it.”

Under Newey’s leadership, Aston Martin introduced a B-spec AMR26 at the Hungarian Grand Prix with the car featuring 16 new parts.

Fernando Alonso qualified a season-high P16 and finished the race in 14th place, one position behind his teammate Lance Stroll.

Newey is hoping the team’s Hungarian update is the beginning of the end of the team’s F1 2026 nightmare.

“Hopefully, yes,” said the Briton.

“The first races have been a complete nightmare, you’re absolutely right. Hopefully, we can get at least a point and respectability now. I think that is the immediate goal.

“From there, we can try to keep moving forward.”

Aston Martin will receive a further boost at the Dutch Grand Prix, the first round following the F1 2026 summer break, when Honda runs its updated power unit.

Rumours suggest it could be worth 50bhp.

Honda chief engineer Shintaro Orihara weighed in on that, telling PlanetF1.com and others: “I want to have that number, but that is a quite big number.

“I can’t describe the detail of power, but my feeling with that is just, no, I don’t think… not the real number.”

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