Damon Hill sees Brawn-style F1 2026 opportunity for Aston Martin under Adrian Newey
Aston Martin team principal Adrian Newey in the paddock at the 2025 Qatar Grand Prix
Adrian Newey could “wave his magic wand” and turn Aston Martin into title contenders in the F1 2026 season.
That is the claim of 1996 world champion Damon Hill, who believes Aston Martin could spring “a complete surprise” under the new rules in a repeat of the Brawn GP story of 2009.
Damon Hill: Adrian Newey could ‘wave his magic wand over Aston Martin’
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After finishing a disappointing seventh in the 2025 constructors’ standings, Aston Martin has been tipped to make significant strides forward under the new regulations in 2026.
The new AMR26 is the first car to be produced by Newey since his high-profile move from Red Bull last year, with this season marking the start of Aston Martin’s highly anticipated technical partnership with Honda.
Newey, the most decorated individual in F1 history with involvement in more than 200 race wins and a combined 26 drivers’ and constructors’ championships, has aced rule changes with the likes of Red Bull, McLaren and Williams over the course of his career.
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Hill, who won the 1996 title behind the wheel of the Newey-influenced Williams FW18, reckons the design guru could take advantage of the new rules to bring Aston Martin to the fore.
Asked if we could see a changing of the guard in F1 this season, he told talkSPORT: “Yes, you could. We could see a complete surprise.
“Something like when Jenson Button won with Brawn – they surprised everyone because they saw through the regulations.
“And the master of seeing through the regulations is Adrian Newey, who’s gone to Aston Martin.
“He left Red Bull and Max Verstappen behind and Christian Horner has left that team anyway, but he’s gone off to Aston Martin.
“He’s been working on this project now for a good 18 months or so, so we’re sort of expecting him to wave his magic wand over Aston Martin.
“It could happen.”
Newey officially joined Aston Martin on March 1, 2025 after serving a period of gardening leave with Red Bull.
The Brawn GP team famously won the drivers’ and constructors’ championships in 2009, 12 months after the team – then competing as Honda – finished a lowly ninth in the 2008 standings.
Despite the expectations surrounding Aston Martin for 2026, and the team’s obvious long-term potential, Newey himself has moved to play down the hype surrounding the Silverstone-based team.
During his first trackside appearance with Aston Martin at last year’s Monaco Grand Prix, Newey highlighted the team’s simulation tools – specifically the driver-in-the-loop simulator – as an area of weakness.
Aston Martin has since taken steps to improve the situation, hiring Newey’s former Red Bull colleague Giles Wood as simulation and vehicle modelling director and bringing in former Ferrari simulations guru Marco Fainello as a consultant.
Despite its success with Red Bull and Max Verstappen over recent years, meanwhile, Honda is technically re-entering Formula 1 in F1 2026 having originally withdrawn at the end of 2021.
Honda’s lost development time and manpower is likely to have come at a cost to the manufacturer’s F1 2026 project.
Koji Watanabe, the president of the Honda Racing Corporation, recently admitted that “not everything is going well” with the development of its F1 2026 engine.
Honda was not named in recent reports that some manufacturers have identified a loophole in the new engine rules related to the compression ratio.
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