Jenson Button explains why Fernando Alonso can fight for the F1 2026 title

Although Jenson Button has tipped Fernando Alonso to fight for a title in an Adrian Newey-designed car, he concedes the “big teams” may have the edge over Aston Martin.

Aston Martin goes into the all-new F1 era as a dark horse as while every team has questions to answer, that is perhaps more true for Aston Martin.

Is Fernando Alonso in the fight for the F1 2026 title?

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Having rebranded Force India/Racing Point as Aston Martin in 2021, team owner Lawrence Stroll has since been putting the pieces of the puzzle into place to fight for a championship title.

From a state-of-the-art facility to building a wind tunnel and signing design legend Newey to spearhead the team’s 2026 car design, Aston Martin has, in theory, everything Alonso needs to fight for a third Drivers’ title.

However, so do many of the other teams.

But singling out the Newey effect, with the Briton’s cars having won 25 championship titles with his most recent spate coming at Red Bull where he won three Drivers’ and two Constructors’ championships in F1’s brief ground-effect aerodynamic era, Aston’s new team ambassador Button believes Alonso will be in the mix.

“I think he can fight for World Championship, and I would love to see that,” the 2009 World Champion told Sky F1.

“And having Adrian Newey being the lead design aerodynamicist on the car, it’s a good step. He’s very good at these regulation changes, and he is pushing the boundaries, looking at how the car looks.

“So, yeah, they, I think, they’ll be in the mix.”

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“But,” and there’s always a but, Button continued, “you can’t forget the big, big teams. Mercedes, McLaren, these teams that have been fighting for the front for so many years.

“I think that they will be the ones this year that will still be near the front.”

Mercedes, Red Bull and McLaren have been the most recent winners in Formula 1. While Mercedes won seven doubles on the trot from 2014 to 2020, Red Bull took over as the team to beat before McLaren clinched its first double since 1998 last season.

But no one knows this season which team will come out on top.

The sport has not only introduced new cars that use active aerodynamics, but the engine formula is also new with a 50/50 split between electrical and combustion power.

Mercedes’ George Russell, billed by bookies as the favourite to win the F1 2026 title, says he was impressed with the look of Newey’s first Aston Martin F1 car.

“I think everybody was looking at that rear suspension, and it obviously visually looks very impressive,” Russell said.

Sexiness, though, does not decide the championship.

“It’s not a competition of how sexy it is. It’s a competition of how fast it goes around the track,” the Mercedes driver added.

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