Aston Martin: ‘We definitely can’t see the light at…

Aston Martin’s Formula 1 troubles have no end in sight after the squad collapsed to the bottom of the standings in 2026, team ambassador Pedro de la Rosa warned.

F1’s move to new regulations panned out dismally for the team as it switched from customer Mercedes engines to a works Honda partnership, as the AMR26 was plagued by a lack of performance and reliability early on.

The main issue was the engine generating vibrations that damaged batteries and numbed drivers’ limbs, though there has been progress on this front. However, Aston has been introducing next to no upgrades – unlike all rivals – due to the currently near-insurmountable gap to the midfield.

Reliability may have improved, but the AMR26 consequently remained the slowest car in both practice sessions at the Monaco Grand Prix, as Fernando Alonso again lamented “chronic understeer”. Cadillac was 0.178s faster, and the next closest team, Racing Bulls, enjoyed a 0.546s margin on the shortest track of the season.

Asked, in Friday’s FIA press conference, if Aston was starting to see a light at the end of the tunnel yet, de la Rosa replied: “Definitely not yet. We are where we are. It’s a difficult start, especially because we are in a position that we were not expecting to be in.

“What we have right now is a very difficult car, drivers that are doing their best, and they’re doing absolutely an incredible job to drive the car as fast as they can in a reliable and safe way. But it is difficult. I would prefer to delay this [answering questions] when we see the light, when the actual upgrades are running and we can rely on facts. My words, we’ve been talking so much about what can be and the light at the end of the tunnel that sometimes it’s a bit just repeating ourselves a bit too much.

Pedro de la Rosa, Aston Martin F1 Team (Photo by: Zak Mauger / Motorsport Images)

“It’s difficult for everyone. I mean, drivers especially, because they have to drive the car, they have to face the car, they have to face the media, they have to explain every race what’s going on, very similar questions to known problems. And we know that in the next few races we have no upgrades. However, we can see the upgrades coming, but they’re far away.

“So, the motivation is there, but it is definitely… They’ve been extremely supportive, they’ve been working extremely hard in the simulator, they’ve been working extremely hard in the team, in the race team, in the factory, spending the time. But it’s difficult, because when you’re not where you are expecting, or you are not where you want to be, it is always more complicated.”

Aston Martin’s Friday was compounded by an accident for Alonso – a minor one, albeit symptomatic of the team’s struggles with driveability, as the Spanish veteran complained about “random downshifts”.

But de la Rosa says other issues have been getting better, namely the aforementioned vibrations – “it’s gone” – and a recent seating problem for Alonso… though a similar one appeared in the sister car.

“Fernando did not say anything over the radio after FP1 about his seat, which is positive as well, which means that all the work that has been done on Tuesday at this track, trying to fit his ’25 seat in this ’26 car, has worked. However, Lance was complaining about seat problems, so we still have to fix some other problems, but it is going in the right direction.”

And, in the longer term, there is cause for optimism. “There are really a lot of things happening behind the scenes in the factory which makes us believe that the upgrades, all the significant changes that we will introduce around the summer, will deliver.” But that end of the tunnel, evidently, remains a long way away.