Adrian Newey admits he was unsure what design philosophy to pursue with Aston Martin’s 2026 F1 car as the team principal spoke about his unique approach for the first time.
Aston only featured for one full day of last week’s private pre-season test in Barcelona but shocked onlookers when their car, the AMR26, was revealed on the penultimate day.
The car is extremely unique compared to the rest of the field, with the nose (wider than normal), sidepods (thin with a heavy undercut) and engine cover (cut away) all different to their competitors.
Yet F1 design legend Newey, who moved from Red Bull after 20 years last March and became Aston Martin team principal at the end of the 2025 season, acknowledged that there is a degree of unknown to the sport’s new engine and chassis regulations and, as such, is cautious about the approach he has taken.
Newey, who is on a contract worth £20m-a-year, told Aston Martin’s website: “We took a really close look at the regulations and what we believe we want to achieve from a flow field perspective to suit them, and from there started to evolve a geometry that attempts to create the flow fields that we want.
“It's very much a holistic approach. But, in truth, with a completely new set of regulations, nobody is ever sure what the right philosophy is. We certainly aren't sure what the best interpretation of the regulations is and therefore the best philosophy to follow.
"Because of our compressed timescale, we decided on a particular direction and that's the one we've pursued. Whether that proves to be the right one or not, only time will tell. But you have to choose your path and get on with it."
Newey revealed that a model of the 2026 car did not enter the team’s new wind-tunnel until last April, putting them behind some rival teams from the get-go.
“That put us on the back foot by about four months, which has meant a very, very compressed research and design cycle,” he added. “The car only came together at the last minute, which is why we were fighting to make it to the Barcelona shakedown.
"Whenever a car is about hit the track for the first time, it's always a nervous moment. The team put in a huge amount of work to get the car ready.
“There's more to come – and lots to learn – but those first couple of days at the track have been important to start building an understanding of how the car behaves and complete those all-important first systems checks before pre-season testing in Bahrain."
Given the unorthodox design of the car, many have perceived Newey’s approach as “aggressive’ as he looks to fire Fernando Alonso and Lance Stroll up the pecking order. Yet Newey swerved away from such labels.
"I never look at any of my designs as aggressive. I just get on with things and pursue what we feel is the right direction,” he said.
"The direction we've taken could certainly be interpreted as aggressive,” he stated. “It's got quite a few features that haven't necessarily been done before. Does that make it aggressive? Possibly. Possibly not.
"We've attempted to build something that we hope will have quite a lot of development potential. What you want to try to avoid is a car that comes out quite optimised within its window but lacks a lot of development potential.
“We've tried to do the opposite, which is why we've really focused on the fundamentals, put our effort into those, knowing that some of the appendages – wings, bodywork, things that can be changed in season – will hopefully have development potential."
Aston will undertake a maximum of six days of pre-season testing with two windows in Bahrain (11-13 February and 18-20 February) alongside the other 10 teams. The 2026 F1 season starts with the Australian Grand Prix in Melbourne on 8 March.
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