Former driver Martin Brundle has shared his first impressions of the AMR26, the first Aston Martin to come out of chief designer Adrian Newey’s workshop. The car finally appeared on track during the closed shakedown in Barcelona, where Lance Stroll carried out the debut on the penultimate day. That outing was limited to only a handful of laps, but one glance at the streamlined car was enough to get paddock tongues wagging.
The interest in Aston Martin is high heading into the new regulations era, partly due to Adrian Newey’s arrival and the factory status the team has secured via the exclusive engine deal with Honda. On Friday Fernando Alonso will also get his first laps in the AMR26, the first tangible product of the collaboration between these F1 giants. Brundle, a former driver and analyst, praised Newey’s ability to decipher the regulations, but also flagged the challenge Aston Martin faces.
Question marks over Aston Martin
At the same time Brundle wondered whether all the necessary conditions at Aston Martin are already in place. “We have to assume Adrian has come up with a number of good ideas, but does he know enough about the Aston Martin wind tunnel and the digital wind tunnel to find those correlations? Does he even have the right people around him to interpret his ideas? That’s already a big task.” He also pointed to Honda. “Adrian told me Honda has some catching up to do, because they pulled back from the sport for a while. So there are certainly still some question marks.”
According to Brundle, the late appearance of the AMR26 does fit Newey’s modus operandi. “He’s known for not signing things off lightly, so the car being late didn’t surprise me in the least. Adrian always pushes for the extreme and will therefore want maximum development time and the deepest understanding of every component.” Despite the many uncertainties, Brundle remains cautiously optimistic: “We’ll see — we don’t know — but I expect that car could still spring a surprise this year.”
