Aston Martin ‘not where we wanted to be’ after damning Honda statement | F1 | Sport

The Adrian Newey era at Aston Martin threatens to start with a whimper after a difficult pre-season hampered by reliability gremlins. Their track time in Bahrain has been more limited than many of their rivals during testing over the last two weeks, and things did not improve as the final few track days of the pre-season reached a climax.

The Silverstone-based squad last three hours’ worth of track time on Thursday after Fernando Alonso stopped on track due to a problem with the electric battery on his engine. And on Friday, the last day of testing, the day began with a statement from power unit suppliers Honda who confirmed there would only be scope for limited running.

The Japanese manufacturer’s statement read: “Our last run with Fernando Alonso yesterday showed a battery-related issue that impacted our test plan with the Aston Martin F1 team. Since the, we have been carrying out simulations on the test bench in HRC Sakura. Due to this, and a shortage of power unit parts, we have adapted today’s run plan to be very limited and consist only of short stints.”

Following that statement, Aston Martin cancelled a planned media session for team representative Pedro de la Rosa, who instead only spoke to F1 TV and in a video statement released by the team on social media, which did not deviate much from what Honda had already said. De la Rosa told fans: “We will be doing less laps, short runs, very short stints and we have half-an-hour breaks in between them to actually have time to look into the data.

“Despite the lack of running and mileage – definitely, we are not where we wanted to be – but we have managed to gather a lot of data and this will give us the opportunity to have the next few days to look into the data and come up with solutions. We know which areas we really need to focus and improve on the car, which is very positive. The new set of regulations are very challenging as well, but they’re also fascinating.

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“It was never going to be easy, we knew that, but we also have great resources. We have our campus in Silverstone, we have Sakura working flat out in order to get us where we wanted to be and we just have to push on. We have a few days before Australia as well. We are not where we wanted to be, but that doesn’t mean that we won’t get our mission completed.”

It is a worrying start for a team which has put so much investment and raised expectations significantly for what it might be able to achieve in 2026. New regulations and the recruitment of legendary designer Newey to dream up their car have presented a remarkable opportunity.

But Newey’s first green creation has not had as much track time as Aston Martin would have liked over the nine days of testing allowed this year, across sessions in Barcelona and Bahrain. And even if it turns out the 67-year-old has designed the most aerodynamically efficient car on the grid, it will mean nothing if the engine powering it cannot get it to the chequered flag.