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Aston Martin team principal has refused to admit that he took the Silverstone-based outfit down the “wrong” path in car development, despite a former Honda employee blasting the 67-year-old’s philosophy for the AMR26.
The design genius has endured a very difficult start to his tenure as the team principal of Aston Martin, with the British constructor’s poor performance 2026 falling well short of the massive expectations that the F1 paddock and fans had of them in pre-season.
Are Aston Martin below ‘F1 standards’ right now, or is Guenther Steiner being unfair?
After pointing the finger at Aston Martin’s engine supplier during a press conference at the season-opener, Newey was accused of making Honda the ‘scapegoat’ for all of the issues that they have faced in 2026.
Newey’s chassis is far from optimal as well, despite predicting Aston Martin would have the best package on the grid by the eighth round of the season. Sunday’s Austrian Grand Prix marked round eight, but Fernando Alonso and Lance Stroll are still languishing at the back of the grid.
- READ MORE: Adrian Newey just highlighted exactly why Aston Martin are hiring Jonathan Wheatley as team boss
Adrian Newey says the ‘direction’ he took in AMR26’s development was not ‘wrong’
In a recent edition of Aston Martin’s Undercut series, the British constructor’s team principal was asked several questions regarding their disastrous start to the 2026 F1 campaign.
When will Aston Martin score their first podium of the Adrian Newey era?
And will they get one at all?
Newey began by pinpointing the delayed start to their work on Aston Martin’s 2026 challenger as a leading factor, saying, “We didn’t start serious work on the ’26 car until mid-March 2025 and didn’t get a model into the wind tunnel until mid‑April.
“That left us several months behind our rivals – and that’s a huge gap to close.”
However, that wasn’t the only issue. “Timing was a huge part of it, but not the only part,” he continued. “We’ve got a very talented group of people, but as an organisation, we weren’t yet working together as well as we would like and operating as one cohesive unit.
“Expectations were sky‑high, but the reality of where we were didn’t match that. On the chassis side, we’re quite a long way overweight. Some of that comes from integrating the power unit and dealing with vibration issues we’ve had to work through with Honda.
“But we also didn’t do as good a job as we should have on our side at saving weight. When you design in a rush, weight is the first thing that suffers because you don’t have the time to thoroughly optimise everything.
- READ MORE: Former Honda engineer fears Aston Martin ‘collapse’ if Adrian Newey continues to run the F1 team
“Aerodynamically, we also took a bold direction, largely pushed by me, without the luxury of exploring multiple concepts in depth because time was against us. I wouldn’t say the direction we’ve taken is fundamentally wrong, but it has thrown up challenges we didn’t anticipate.”
One former Honda employee begs to differ, however. In a recent interview with a Japanese outlet, ex-Honda engine chief Yasuaki Asaki believes Aston Martin should have been “more decisive” with Newey’s development ideas, instead of following them blindly.
Asaki labelled Aston Martin as “a disaster”, adding that Newey was able to succeed at Red Bull due to the strong leadership panel they had during his tenure in Milton Keynes.
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