Aston Martin ‘needs to find four seconds’ as Lance Stroll lifts lid on AMR26 struggles

Lance Stroll says Aston Martin needs to “try and find four seconds of performance” to stand a chance of being competitive with the AMR26 car in F1 2026.

And he says the car’s livery and the weather have been the few positives at this week’s second pre-season test in Bahrain.

Lance Stroll: Aston Martin has ‘a lot of work to do’ with AMR26

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Aston Martin entered this season with high expectations following the arrival of legendary designer Adrian Newey last year, with the team also entering a technical partnership with Honda in 2026.

However, the Silverstone-based outfit’s preparations for the new campaign have stuttered over recent weeks.

Aston Martin arrived late to the first test in Barcelona last month, carrying out just two of its permitted three days of running.

That meant Aston Martin carried out just 54 laps in Spain, 446 fewer than the Mercedes team.

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The team’s muted start to the season has continued in Bahrain this week with Stroll managing just 36 laps in the opening day in Sakhir on Wednesday.

Stroll’s teammate, the two-time world champion Fernando Alonso, fared better in Thursday’s morning session in Bahrain, recording 55 laps.

However, his fastest lap time was 4.687 seconds slower than the benchmark recorded by Ferrari driver Charles Leclerc.

Speaking to media including PlanetF1.com on Thursday in Bahrain, Stroll admitted that Aston Martin has “a lot of work to do” before the start of the season in Australia on March 8.

He said: “Still learning the car, the engine.

“We have a lot of work to do, catching up to do.

“We have probably 400 less laps than the competition with Barcelona and everything that we missed, so we just have to keep pushing.”

Asked if he has been left frustrated by Aston Martin’s limp start to testing, he added: “It is what it is. We just focus on where we are and what we can improve on going forward and that’s what we can do.”

Stroll went on to admit that Aston Martin is suffering from a range of issues at this stage of the season, including the engine and a general lack of balance and grip in the car.

He said: “It’s a combination of things: engine, balance, grip. It’s not one thing, it’s a combination.”

Asked if the balance issues stem partly from the engine, he added: “Yeah, some of it is. For sure. A big part of it is.”

On how the car feels in terms of downshifts and braking on corner entry, he said: “It’s not great at the moment, that’s for sure.”

Quizzed on whether he can take any positives from the test so far, Stroll quipped: “Sunny outside. The weather’s nice. Better than UK weather! The livery looks nice.”

Stroll admitted that he is unsure about the car’s ultimate potential in 2026 at this point, insisting the team are trying to improve the situation with each run in Bahrain.

He said: “Time will tell how much performance we can extract from it.

“Right now, the issues we have we’re trying to improve it every run, every day, and we’ll see how much more we can extract from the car.

“Time will tell [if Aston Martin’s problems run deeper than a lack of running].

“We are where we are and we have the issues we have.

“We just keep pushing forward and trying to extract more performance from the engine, from the car, and see where we get to in Australia for the first race and how we can develop going from there.”

Asked if Aston Martin can close the gap to its rivals in time for the Australian Grand Prix, he explained: “I don’t know.

“Right now we look like we’re four seconds off the top team, four and a half seconds.

“So, again, impossible to know what fuel loads and everything people are running.

“But now we need to try and find four seconds of performance. I don’t think it falls from the sky.

“I think you have to improve and find performance in the car and the engine.

“These are just usual things in F1. When you’re behind the competition, you have to think about ways to extract more from the package you have and, at the same time, also improve.

“No one stands still in this business. Everyone’s trying to find performance in every way, every weekend, all the time.

“We’re doing that. We’re trying to extract more performance every day from the car and think also, longer term, bring upgrades on the PU side, on the chassis side, and we will see in Australia where we line up and then we will see throughout the season how we progress.

“But we’re pushing as hard as we can that’s all we can do right now.”

Despite its recent success with Max Verstappen and Red Bull, Honda is technically returning to F1 this year having originally withdrawn at the end of the 2021 season.

The Japanese manufacturer provided only technical support to Red Bull until the end of 2025, with Honda completing its U-turn by announcing its new partnership with Aston Martin in May 2023.

As reported by PlanetF1.com last month, Honda Racing Corporation Koji Watanabe recently downplayed expectations at the start of 2026 by admitting that “not everything is going well” with the development of the new engine.

However, Watanabe insisted that “nothing fatal has happened that we cannot overcome.”

Asked if he could see Aston Martin’s struggles coming, Stroll said: “I don’t have an emotional reaction to it.

“We are where we are. Do we want to fight for race wins? Yes. Are we fighting for race wins today? Doesn’t look like it.

“Does that mean we can fight for race wins in the future? I believe we can.

“I don’t have a crystal ball, I didn’t have a crystal ball before the season started, and we are where we are here today.

“It doesn’t look like it’s amazing. Can that change in the next few weeks? Can it get a lot better? For sure.

“Will it 100 per cent get way better? I don’t know. I don’t have the answers to those questions.

“So all I can say is we’re pushing as hard as we can. We’re focused on bringing performance to the car, to the engine, every single second of every single day and time will tell how competitive we look at the first race and throughout the whole season and that’s it.”

Asked if the presence of Honda and Newey gives him confidence that Aston Martin can overcome its current woes, he said: “Yeah, absolutely.

“We have all the tools to provide for race wins and championships.

“If we’re not doing that at the moment, then we have to think what we can do better.”

On whether Newey, the newly appointed Aston Martin team principal, has given him any reassurances, he added: “No, we haven’t spoken too much about that.

“We’re just focused on where we are right now, the issues we have, the things we need to work on.

“And, like I said, time will tell where that leads to for the first race in Australia and how we progress throughout the season.”

Additional reporting by Mat Coch and Thomas Maher

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