Former F1 champion Damon Hill believes Adrian Newey can steer Aston Martin to the front under the new regulations. The master designer took up the technical director role at the start of last year and has since been primarily focused on the 2026 car. In early February the British squad will pull the covers off the AMR26. Hill has high expectations for this first Aston Martin penned by Newey, who is also due to become team boss at Silverstone.
Asked whether Aston Martin can again mix it with the top teams this year, Hill told talkSPORT: “Yes, they could take the lead this year. We might be in for a complete surprise, like when Jenson Button won with Brawn GP; they caught everyone off guard because they had understood the regulations.” Button won the drivers’ title in 2009 — to everyone’s astonishment — with Brawn GP. The British squad’s double diffuser, the team that later became Mercedes, gave them a serious advantage over the competition.
“The master at decoding the rules is Adrian Newey, who has gone to Aston Martin,” Hill added. “He left Red Bull and Max Verstappen behind, and Christian Horner has in any case already departed that outfit. But he’s now at Aston Martin, where he’s been working on this project for a year and a half. So we actually expect him to work his magic there again. It could very well happen.”
