Aston Martin will bring a major upgrade for the AMR26 in Hungary, followed by a new Honda engine at Zandvoort—Adrian Newey reveals what this is expected to achieve
Aston Martin remains Formula 1’s biggest problem child following the British Grand Prix at Silverstone: In the first segment of qualifying, Fernando Alonso and Lance Stroll were more than three seconds off the fastest time set by Isack Hadjar in the Red Bull. However, this gap was a trade-off the team made deliberately.
“After Melbourne, we decided not to introduce minor changes that wouldn’t have given us a real chance at points anyway,” recalls technical genius Adrian Newey in an interview with Sky. It is now known that Aston Martin has raced the AMR26 so far without a single update.
This explains not only the gap to the competition but also why it has recently grown even wider. “So we’re taking some pressure off, reorganizing, establishing structures for the future, and working on a comprehensive upgrade that we hope to have ready for Hungary,” says Newey.
“That’s the first step,” the Brit reveals about the extensive update package for the AMR26, on which Aston Martin is apparently pinning high hopes. “More will follow, combined with an upgrade from Honda as part of the power unit regulations for Zandvoort.”
“We won’t be breaking into the top 10 right away, but…”
Honda chief engineer Shintaro Orihara had already announced after the Austrian Grand Prix that the major engine update was set to debut at the race in the Netherlands. The focus is on improving the engine’s performance.
The key question, however, is: What does the British racing team expect from these numerous improvements? Newey hopes that “we’ll at least be in the points, meaning right in the midfield.” Given the current situation, that’s a goal that seems almost ambitious.
“I’m not saying we’ll make it straight into the top 10,” the Brit quickly backtracks, “but if we can at least comfortably make it into Q2, we can take it from there.” Even for that, though, Alonso and Stroll would have had to be more than two seconds faster at Silverstone…
