Where Aston Martin's AMR26 has fingerprints from both Newey and Cardile

Adrian Newey’s reputation precedes him. When you’ve won enough titles in Formula 1, you tend to cultivate a certain mythology about one’s person: in Newey’s case, it is that he’s the short-cut and the cheat-code to victory.

Thus, when Aston Martin’s AMR26 – the first of the team’s cars that Newey has had a hand in – emerged on Thursday afternoon, the mythologising began in earnest. An aggregate of those thoughts seemed to hinge on the differing visual cues of the car, declaring that “Newey had done it again”.

Sure, it does look different to the other cars that were seen before it, but I guarantee the Williams will also look different; it’s almost like different teams built them. The Alpine also looks, in certain respects, radically different to its competitors – but such was the team’s lowly stature last season that nobody felt it could grant the team much kudos for doing so.

That, and Alpine doesn’t have Newey.

That’s not to say the Aston Martin isn’t interesting. It’s got quite a bulbous looking nose, albeit one that tapers into the bulkhead, and one that sits lower between the wing-mount pylons before it sweeps upwards to sit flush with the tub.

It’s a trick that teams have used before, where you try to accelerate the air underneath a little bit to trim off any pockets of slow-moving air produced by the blockage in the nose’s interaction the air. If anything, it puts one in mind of Brawn’s nose in 2009, in which the wider tip area began to tuck in slightly along the flanks.

Meanwhile, the endplates don’t feature the outward winglets that most teams have used in some form, instead filling the space with a tyre temperature sensor. The vortex tunnels also fill a conventional form factor, but without the flattened-out trailing edge – it's going to let the tyre do a bit of the outwashing of the vortex produced here.

What caught the eye of many was the front suspension package, although this is hidden by the image Aston Martin shared upon its socials – luckily, sneak shots from those hovering in proximity of the Barcelona circuit were on hand to fill in some of the gaps.

The upper suspension wishbone has been given quite a radical inclination between the front and rear legs; the front leg’s mount point sits flush with the top of the push-rod, while the rear leg has been swept down towards the bottom corner of the chassis bulkhead. Think McLaren’s package here, but with an even lower attachment point. From that, the car derives some anti-dive qualities, but also improves the interaction with the airflow around the lower reaches of the car. This is helpful in managing the flow around the front of the sidepod.

Here, there’s quite a distinct undercut, which looks to be of a similar magnitude to the Mercedes. Aston has shaped its sidepods differently to benefit from an underbite intake, helping to pull some of the more turbulent flow away. The decision to post a greyscale image hides some of the key details here (later revealed in colour), but there appears to be a four-piece wakeboard with an arrow-shaped second piece – something which may be able to roll up a tip vortex to strengthen the flow around the sidepod.

The engine cover area is also interesting, in that it seems to run with a triangular rollhoop with horns either side. One might argue that this has not got Newey’s fingerprints on it, but those of Enrico Cardile; the Italian employed similar design traits in the 2022 and 2023 Ferraris, and the flared outlet sitting below the horns does not look dissimilar to those seen on recent Ferraris either.

Opting for this design and centralising the intake area minimises the risk of lower-energy flow reaching the rear wing – which has become more important since ground-effect aero is now out of the equation. There are further fins sitting either side of the halo mountings situated by the cockpit, another area where Cardile’s former outfit liked to experiment with aero furniture – its ‘cobra fins’ in 2024 being one such example.

Aston Martin AMR26

Photo by: Aston Martin

It’s difficult to make out some of the rear suspension detail in the photography provided by the team, but it does appear to have kept the rear leg of the upper wishbone high to assist with the anti-dive properties outline by the front – it's all about the wishbone inclination and the centre of gravity of the car. The team also, in similar fashion to Newey’s old stomping ground at Red Bull during the pre-2022 era, appears to have dialled some rake into the car to maximise diffuser performance.

The rear wing’s endplates also contain small bulges to assist with the flow upwash here; this is something Aston Martin used around the lower part of the endplate on its previous cars, and helps to bring the higher-pressure top-side flow upwards to expand on the lower-pressure area within and behind the diffuser to improve overall suction.

While Newey, as team principal and technical managing partner, will command most of the credit, there is much in the way of influence from technical director Cardile. As mentioned, there are similar hallmarks to those seen on the Ferraris across previous seasons, and it’ll be interesting to watch how that blend of ideas between two of the pre-eminent teams in F1 develops.

Worryingly for Aston, the new Honda power unit hasn’t had much running. Stroll stopped on track during the late afternoon running of the AMR26, and hopes will rest on putting miles on the clock over Friday.