Alonso admits Newey’s Aston ‘definitely behind’

Feb.10 (GMM) Fernando Alonso has openly conceded that Aston Martin is beginning Formula 1’s new 2026 era on the back foot, after the team’s Adrian Newey-designed car arrived late and barely ran during the Barcelona shakedown.

Speaking to Spanish newspaper AS following Aston Martin’s livery launch, the two-time world champion made no attempt to downplay the situation.

“We’re definitely behind, we’re at square one. I don’t think we’ve even started,” said Fernando Alonso. “In Barcelona we were able to run some track time, but I treated it more like a filming day – a shakedown that other teams did privately at Silverstone with 200 kilometres that we couldn’t do.”

Alonso explained that Barcelona effectively served as Aston Martin’s delayed first systems check, rather than a meaningful performance test.

“Some parts of the car weren’t validated for top speed, and we had to limit ourselves to 280 kilometres per hour on the straights. It’s just one example of how the preparation was pushed to the limit.”

As a result, the Spaniard says he has no real feel yet for the competitiveness of the AMR26.

“No, I don’t have it yet,” Alonso admitted when asked if he could judge whether the car was good or not. “Bahrain will be our very first test, our very first contact with the car. Barcelona was just starting the car and seeing that everything worked.”

Alonso acknowledged that the delays go beyond the chassis, echoing comments already made by Adrian Newey.

“I’m aware of some challenges we have, and I’m not the one saying this – Adrian has said it too,” Alonso said. “That we were a few months behind what he thinks the other teams were doing, and the same goes for Honda, who have had more difficulties than they expected with the engine.”

With less than a month until Melbourne, Alonso warned that not all issues will be resolved in time.

“We believe we have some issues to resolve regarding the project’s competitiveness, and we don’t have much time,” he said. “Some of these issues won’t be resolved before Australia, and we’ll have to deal with them in the first three or four races.”

Despite that, Alonso played down panic around Aston Martin’s delayed appearance, suggesting Newey’s reputation alone explains why rivals are watching closely and hailing the apparently radical design.

“This is the Newey factor – it’s always been like this,” he said. “Whenever he presented a car in testing, you always had an eye on that car and what it could do or what could be copied. Now it will happen to our rivals.”

Still, Alonso stressed that 2026 will be a long game.

“This is a marathon, not a sprint,” he said. “The development race is going to be very long. It’s not how you start, it’s how you finish – and the second half of the season will be more important than the first.”

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