How Aston Martin’s 2026 dream turned into chaos

Under the ownership of Lawrence Stroll, the team has had grand ambitions that until now it has not come close to matching. The situation begs the questions: how is it possible that a team that has invested so heavily in big names still makes a mess of things during winter testing ahead of a crucial season?

In recent years, Aston Martin tried to move step by step toward the top of Formula 1, but on the timesheets it has drifted further and further away. Big names were recruited from other teams in the hope of catching up to their rivals, only to disappear from the factory just as quickly as they arrived.

2026 was supposed to be the year for Aston Martin to grow and take the next step. The year when the regulations would change completely and the leap to the front could be made. In reality, as 2026 begins, Aston Martin is farther from the top than it has ever been.

And that’s odd, because all the ingredients are there. Aston Martin is no longer a customer team for the first time, having a works deal with Honda. On paper, it was a solid plan, but Honda is currently far from the best engine partner.

When Honda had initially decided to leave Formula 1, many staff members moved to Red Bull or other power unit manufacturers. So when he Japanese company reversed its decision and decided to build an engine again, it had to go looking for new people and therefore were already behind manufacturers who had long since started their 2026 projects.

Aston Martin also took on more responsibility itself. The gearbox it had bought from Mercedes for years was traded in for an in-house gearbox. A hefty undertaking for a team that has watched a brand-new factory grow step by step in recent years.

That massive factory right next to the Silverstone circuit, however, wasn’t fully ready in time. The brand-new wind tunnel could only be brought online after the start of 2025, preventing much of the testing from taking place there. The facilities are in place now, but they effectively came too late.

The same goes for personnel. The man now responsible for the AMR26 could only start in March 2026. Two months that rivals had already spent on their cars, Newey still had to make up—and with a wind tunnel that wasn’t finished and a power unit already subject to doubts.

In the press conference, Zak Brown, Frédéric Vasseur, and Toto Wolff also (painfully for Aston Martin) touched on how the top teams consistently excel. They not only have the right facilities and people, but also a certain stability. There aren’t too many changes within the team, let alone in management.

And that last point is certainly not where Aston Martin has shined. The team principal role—the key position steering the team—has been occupied by three different people over the past year and a half: Mike Krack, Andy Cowell, and now Adrian Newey.

There have also been numerous changes on the technical front. First, Dan Fallows was poached from Red Bull Racing as the new wunderkind, but he now works at Racing Bulls. Enrico Cardile and Adrian Newey were then brought in, but the latter must now alternate his role as designer with that of team principal. Highly unusual.

And so Aston Martin’s current status is anything but surprising. Anyone with a rough idea of what’s been happening within that team saw this coming from miles away. The question now is: what next?

We’ve seen so many changes at the team whenever things dipped slightly or a bigger name became available. Aston Martin undeniably has the finances and resources to eventually grow into a top team, but is there patience at the top as well? When Stroll took over the team, he laid out a five year plan that had the team at the front and fighting for wins, yet as we enter 2026 there is the grim prospect of them struggling not to be last.