According to Aston Martin, the results don’t tell the whole story—Pedro de la Rosa believes the Newey-designed chassis could be a top-5 car on some tracks
Aston Martin apparently views the potential of its 2026 Formula 1 car more positively than the results so far would suggest. Team ambassador Pedro de la Rosa explains that, in certain scenarios, the chassis could even be among the five fastest cars on the grid.
The Silverstone-based team is transitioning to the new technical era of Formula 1, moving from Mercedes customer engines to a factory package from Honda. Although there has been recent progress in reliability, the new power unit continues to limit overall performance.
De la Rosa emphasizes that the car’s true performance depends heavily on the specific track: “I think on some tracks we could be fifth fastest, on others we could be significantly further back,” says the Spaniard. At the same time, he makes it clear that the team is not satisfied with the current situation.
Delays in the development process at Aston Martin
Aerodynamics expert Adrian Newey, who is largely responsible for the new project at Aston Martin, had also pointed out delays in the development process early on.
According to Newey, the new wind tunnel model of this year’s car could not be tested for the first time until mid-April 2025, while most competitors had started development much earlier. This set the team back by about four months during the development phase and led to a very compressed development schedule.
In Monaco, Aston Martin recently showed its difficult side. The team struggled with severe understeer in slow corners and was unable to fully resolve the issue even through setup adjustments.
Post-Monaco analysis in focus
At the same time, team ambassador and former Formula 1 driver de la Rosa emphasizes that Monaco is a special case and that the data must now first be thoroughly analyzed. “I would be surprised if we encountered this level of understeer on other tracks,” said the Spaniard.
Whether the problems in Monaco will remain a one-off or point to a more fundamental balance issue is still unclear. Aston Martin intends to use the upcoming races to gather and process further insights into the car’s behavior under different conditions.
