Why Aston Martin is a better destination on the F1 driver market than it seems

If there is one clear loser based on the first half of the 2026 Formula 1 season – among the many rankings that inevitably emerge at this stage of the year – Aston Martin is an obvious candidate.

Adrian Newey admitted ahead of the Hungarian Grand Prix upgrade that the campaign up to that point had been "a nightmare" and that the drivers had barely been able to race, simply because the gap to newcomer Cadillac was already a full second on several weekends.

That hardly sounds like the place to be, and let's be clear: it probably does not even need to be. If Fernando Alonso sticks to the philosophy he shared at the end of last year, then he should perhaps continue for one more season. Back then, the two-time F1 champion said he would retire if the car was competitive, allowing him to bow out on a high. If that did not happen, he suggested he might feel compelled to carry on for a little longer.

Even so, Aston Martin is a more attractive destination than its results currently suggest. Yes, those results have been awful, but part of the blow comes from expectations that were unrealistically high and overly simplistic.

With a state-of-the-art factory in Silverstone, a brand-new wind tunnel, Adrian Newey as its legendary designer and a works partnership with Honda, it was all too easy to assume that the ingredients were already in place to hit the ground running under the new regulations.

The reality is that all those ingredients are still there, but bringing them together simply requires more time than expected – far more time, in fact. That applies to all three of the ingredients mentioned above.

Aston has been the slowest team at many grands prix in F1 2026

Photo by: Alastair Staley / LAT Images via Getty Images

Newey has said that Aston Martin now has the best facilities in F1, but also stressed that extracting the maximum from those tools takes time. According to Newey, that has affected his own work as well. Because of his late start and because Aston Martin's new wind tunnel only became operational relatively late, he constantly found himself playing catch-up.

"We made the decision, rightly or wrongly, to delay [introducing our model in the wind tunnel] for two more weeks until we had our own tunnel commissioned, rather than starting in Brackley for a very short period only to move again,” he said.

"So that was the kind of timeline behind it. It was a big build-up process, I would say, so everything was just on the back foot in that sense. But you do what you can and you just get on with it."

"Honda is a very unique company. So staff is always moving between road car projects and the Formula 1 project" Shintaro Orihara

Furthermore, Honda has hit far more trouble than originally anticipated. It remains almost unthinkable that, as Newey revealed in Melbourne, Aston Martin only discovered the true state of Honda's F1 project in November 2025. If that were really the case, what kind of due diligence had been done beforehand? It would suggest that back in 2023, Aston Martin did not fully know what it was signing up for, which sounds incredible for such an ambitious project.

Whatever the case, the reality is that Honda's current F1 operation is very different from the one that enjoyed so much success with Red Bull, having largely been built with new personnel.

"Honda is a very unique company. So staff is always moving between road car projects and the Formula 1 project," chief engineer Shintaro Orihara explained in a recent interview with Autosport.

Honda won the F1 world title with Red Bull, will it do the same with Aston?

Photo by: Alastair Staley / LAT Images via Getty Images

“Last year, we had a lot of, not new people, but high-talent people coming from road car projects, and also some people who stayed from the Red Bull project.

"As always, we develop talent in our Formula 1 project to boost Honda's knowledge. But then, probably at the end of last year, [we realised that] our total human development level was not sufficient for the Formula 1 level."

Since then, Honda has taken several steps to address the issue, including bringing experienced people back into the project. Even so, Honda also recognises that overcoming its current deficit will take time.

Was the Hungary upgrade the first sign of a revival?

The conclusion is that expectations proved too high across the board and that the puzzle of achieving success has turned out to be considerably more complicated than initially thought.

But all the ingredients for success are still there. The new factory will eventually deliver results, Honda believes it can become a "top competitor" in F1 again by the end of 2027 or the beginning of 2028, and Newey has already shown signs of progress.

That became evident in Hungary, where the first major upgrade package for the AMR26 was introduced. Of course, those upgrades did not immediately take Aston Martin where it ultimately wants to be, but if we look purely at the numbers, the step forward was significant.

Aston brought what was essentially a 'B-spec' chassis to Hungary

Photo by: Alastair Staley / LAT Images via Getty Images

Below are the figures from data partner Paceteq, which calculated the pure race pace for each grand prix. They represent Aston Martin's average deficit in seconds per lap to the front of the field.

The huge deficits at Silverstone and Spa are somewhat distorted because they are long tracks, and also because all rivals had already introduced numerous upgrades by then, while Aston Martin had been forced to wait and put all its eggs in the Hungary basket.

The Hungaroring is naturally a much shorter circuit, where the gaps are traditionally smaller. Moreover, the shortcomings of the power unit were less of a factor there.

 Anyone walking through the pitlane can see how aggressive the Aston Martin remains – not only in terms of rake, but also with its undercut, extreme rear suspension solutions and numerous other design features

Even so, the progress is remarkable. In Paceteq's race pace figures, Aston Martin was not only ahead of Cadillac, but also ahead of Williams and Haas. Its deficit to Alpine at this circuit was only just over one tenth of a second, although the French team is eagerly awaiting its own upgrades at Zandvoort.

The progress at least suggests that there is light at the end of the tunnel. Newey has found lap time and the eye-catching concept should still offer room for further improvement. Anyone walking through the pitlane can see how aggressive the Aston Martin remains – not only in terms of rake, but also with its undercut, extreme rear suspension solutions and numerous other design features. Newey has yet to unlock the real potential of the concept, but the fact that he has not abandoned it fully suggests, knowing Newey, that he still sees some hidden potential along the path that he has chosen.

If Honda also succeeds in taking a meaningful step forward with its first ADUO upgrade in Zandvoort, then there will at least be some renewed optimism. If Lawrence Stroll manages to remain patient and eventually appoints a capable team principal such as Jonathan Wheatley – allowing Newey to focus solely on his design duties – then the remaining pieces of the puzzle may yet fall into place.

Aston will bring an upgraded engine to Zandvoort at the end of August

Photo by: Simon Galloway / LAT Images via Getty Images

Yes, all of this is happening much later than expected, and yes, the project still has an extremely long road ahead. But there are some genuine signs of potential.

As Alonso confidently put it in Hungary: "It takes time, but I have no doubts, zero doubts, that Adrian will provide the best car on the grid sooner or later.

"On the power unit, I have no doubt as well. I think it's a matter of time before Honda fixes the issues, because it's what they've been doing for the last 40 years of racing."

Whether the 45-year-old Spaniard will still be around to enjoy the benefits is another question. But if he is not, then several drivers would be wise to at least consider the Aston Martin project – particularly drivers like Carlos Sainz, who currently appears somewhat stuck, or someone who loses out if the driver market among the top four teams eventually starts moving again.

During the first half of 2025, even Max Verstappen was linked with the Silverstone-based team, something that said everything about the unrealistically high expectations at the time. Although attracting a driver of his calibre now seems almost impossible, Aston Martin could still become a very attractive destination for many others – far more attractive than the current results might suggest.

Yes, the start has been disastrous, but patience is a virtue. And in time, this project may well prove to be another example of that.

Williams has endured a poor 2026, so Sainz may look to move on

Photo by: Clive Mason / Getty Images