The past few years have not been easy for Aston Martin. A major step forward at the start of 2023, when Alonso first joined the team, led to six podiums in the first eight races and what could have been a win in Monaco, lost only to a wrong tyre choice during a late shower of rain.
But in the second half of that season the team slipped back, as they failed to keep up the development rate of their rivals. The same happened in 2024, from a lower starting point, and in 2025 they were simply uncompetitive, slipping to seventh in the championship from fifth the previous two years.
Newey’s arrival was supposed to herald the start of the turnaround, especially as historically he has aced regulation changes, producing design philosophies that were followed by rivals – in 1998 with McLaren, and again in 2009 and 2022 with Red Bull.
The biggest rule regulation change in F1 history for 2026 gave him the chance to do it again, this time for Aston Martin.
But the first car produced under his leadership has fallen far short of expectations, and a glance at the context makes this less of a surprise than it appears on the surface.
In F1, success comes from stability, and that is the last thing Aston Martin has had in the past few years. There has been major leadership churn, and right at the top, too.
This has included new recruits, such as chief technical officer Enrico Cardile, who finally arrived in July after a year on gardening leave from Ferrari.
But also casualties. The most recent was Andy Cowell, the architect of the success of the Mercedes engine in the hybrid era. He was installed as chief executive officer only in October 2024, but just over a year later, after a clash with Newey, was demoted to a different role.
Cowell is now spending much of his time in Japan, trying to help Honda sort itself out.
Aston Martin were already playing down expectations when they had their official team launch in early February, emphasising the project would need time to become successful.
Newey has explained that his starting in March left them some months behind other teams in terms of development.
The new 2026 aerodynamic regulations were finally officially published on 2 January 2025, two months before Newey officially started work at Aston Martin.
In reality, teams have been working on their 2026 cars for much longer than that. The basics of the cars’ layouts in the rules had been known for some time, and the teams had all been in working groups refining the detail with governing body the FIA, so knew where they were going.
The word is that when Newey arrived in March 2026, he effectively ordered a redesign of the car on the basis of his ideas. So the current car is several months, at least, behind all its rivals in terms of development. With that sort of deficit, even he cannot work miracles.
Newey has described the Aston Martin as “one of the more extreme interpretations” of this year’s new rules.
Right now, in its under-developed form, there is no question it is uncompetitive – slow and unpredictable. It may yet turn out that it can be developed into a good car, but until Honda sorts itself out, it will be hard to tell.