After an initial delay compared to the rest of the field, Aston Martin finally made its first appearance with the AMR26 late yesterday, rolling out a full-black version of the car. The debut was not without a few early teething issues, however, limiting Lance Stroll to just a handful of laps.

And yet, despite barely turning a wheel, the AMR26 has already caught the eye in the paddock thanks to several visibly unconventional solutions compared to the cars seen so far — including the mounting of one of the rear suspension arms directly to the twin pylon supporting the rear wing.

Writing for The Race, Anderson remarked: “There’s no question it’s an Adrian Newey Formula 1 car! Even without seeing the detail, you can tell it’s extreme, aggressive and all of those other words you can use for a car that pushes to extremes. Concept-wise, it looks like it’s on the limit.”

The former Jordan engineer then highlighted the area in which he believes Newey truly excels: “Adrian is always very good at working out the right compromises when it comes to creating the most performance from a rules package. So with the energy demands of these cars and the value of low-drag in making best use of that, perhaps he’s decided to go all-in on that?”

Aston Martin was unable to have Fernando Alonso and Lance Stroll’s new car ready for the opening of the test, with the team only managing to join the running later on. According to Mike Krack, the fact that they were able to take part at all should already be considered a success.

There is no sense of alarm from Aston Martin’s Chief Trackside Officer, who explained that the scale of changes within the team meant it simply took longer than expected to get everything in place — ultimately costing them the start of the test.