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Aston Martin stunned the F1 paddock by refusing to bring any performance-based upgrades to the most recent Miami Grand Prix, with insiders now revealing the reason why Adrian Newey is refusing to bring new parts.
While the rest of the grid were busy during F1’s five-week break developing new parts for their 2026 challenger, Aston Martin remained stagnant, instead choosing to focus on reliability rather than performance.
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A swathe of issues have been prevalent within Honda’s 2026-spec power unit, and so Aston Martin decided to leave one of the AMR26s in Japan following the race weekend at Suzuka to ensure that engineers could properly stamp out the problems.
Fernando Alonso and Lance Stroll ended up taking the chequered flag at Miami in P15 and P17, respectively.
Of course, it was nowhere near where the British constructor wanted to be, but it did mark the first race of the season that both cars completed a full Grand Prix distance.
It’s clear that there is a lot more work to do before Alonso and Stroll are competing for points on a consistent basis again, but the early forecasts suggest that they won’t have anything to smile about until the summer break.
- READ MORE: Fernando Alonso claims less practice is ‘better’ for Aston Martin as he reveals their upgrade plan
Adrian Newey wants to ensure any AMR26 gains are ‘substantial’ instead of ‘incremental’
During a recent episode of the RacingNews365 podcast, F1 journalist Ian Parkes revealed some information he had collected from speaking to figures within the paddock about Aston Martin’s current woes.
Parkes began by highlighting how fascinated he is about Cadillac being on par with Aston Martin this season, considering the vast gap in F1 experience that the American constructor currently has.
“It’s the Cadillac/Aston thing that absolutely fascinates me. I mean, who would have thought?” he started. “A team brand new to Formula 1, with just four Grands Prix under its belt so far.
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“And here it is, battling a team in Aston with all its resources, history, and everything else that’s been thrown at the team. And the fact is that Aston is not even going to have any upgrades on its car until the summer, according to Fernando Alonso.”
Parkes then elaborated on his point about the Spaniard by revealing what he had heard inside the F1 paddock, adding, “Obviously, we can see stuff not just with the Honda power unit but with the development of the aero as well.
“Speaking to people in the paddock over the weekend, the belief is that they’re delaying any kind of major upgrade because Adrian, in particular, is being so fussy and so perfectionist. He wants to get this absolutely, fundamentally right.
“They don’t just want to throw components at the car, hoping that it’s going to give them a tenth here or tenth there.
“They want to bring something that’s fundamentally going to change the performance and efficiency of that car to ensure that any gains made are substantial and not just incremental.”
- READ MORE: Aston Martin accused of entering a ‘world championship against Cadillac’ after postponing upgrades
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