Martin Brundle warns Aston Martin in ‘dire trouble’ before F1 2026 opener
Aston Martin are in "dire trouble," says Martin Brundle
Aston Martin are in “dire trouble” going into F1 2026, so says Martin Brundle, after a disrupted pre-season for the team and its new engine supplier Honda.
Brundle does not doubt that the “brain power” exists to turn this situation around. However, claiming that correlation between the windtunnel and physical car seems “miles out,” Brundle suggests this will not be a quick fix, while the lack of data collected for Aston Martin and Honda he says is a big issue.
Martin Brundle raises alarm over Aston Martin F1 2026 testing woes
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Aston Martin was restricted to just 400 laps completed across the Barcelona and Bahrain tests, as a series of reliability wobbles hampered track time.
The most significant of those cost Aston Martin much of the final day-and-a-half in Bahrain. Battery issues, and a lack of Honda engine spare parts, were the culprits.
With Aston Martin and Honda at the start of its journey together, and so many other puzzle pieces still coming together, such as Adrian Newey, and the maturing of Aston Martin’s new factory, windtunnel and simulator, it was always expected that it would take time for everything to gel.
But, the issues encountered in Barcelona and Bahrain were more troublesome than anticipated, and it leaves Aston Martin in a difficult position going into the season-opening Australian Grand Prix.
Speaking on Sky’s ‘The F1 Show’ podcast, Brundle painted a rather bleak picture regarding the present Aston Martin-Honda situation.
The engine issues created uncertainty over the true pace of Aston Martin’s AMR26 chassis. Brundle suggested that the troubles are not fully engine related.
“New everything. So it’s clear to me that the correlation between the windtunnel – the digital windtunnel, the CFD – and the stopwatch on the racetrack, it looks like it’s miles out,” said Brundle.
“Because the car didn’t exactly look stuck to the road when it was running.
“Honda were pulling out, they came back in. They seemed a long way behind on the battery recovery – on the power recovery – and reliability.
“They’re churning through their cost cap on the motor side already, and with parts and batteries.
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“And the big problem they have is that there are four teams charging around with the Mercedes power unit. Can you imagine, after nine days of testing, how much data Mercedes have.
“Ferrari have three teams out there. Audi have done well, but they’ve only got themselves, and Honda have only got Aston Martin. So if the Aston Martin is not going around the track, which it wasn’t, by and large, they’ve got nil data.
“So it’s a snowball effect for them, and they’re in dire trouble, Aston Martin.
“I’m sure they’ve got the resource and the brain power to do something about that. But it’s going to take some time.”
Honda uncovered “abnormal vibrations” behind Aston Martin’s testing setbacks. Solutions are being worked on with Aston Martin, and there is confidence that team principal and design guru, Adrian Newey, can return Aston Martin to calmer waters.
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