Newey: “The AMR26 has features that have never been seen before”
Aston Martin’s team principal, in a team interview: “We have tried to build something with development potential, the car will be different in Australia.”
He won’t reveal his magic tricks, but he’s more than willing to talk about the magic itself. Adrian Newey — widely regarded as the most influential designer in Formula 1 history — opened up in an Aston Martin interview about the AMR26, the philosophy behind its concept, and the aggressive push to give Fernando Alonso a car capable of fighting for wins in 2026.
“We took a really close look at the regulations and what we believe we want to achieve from a flow field perspective to suit them, and from there started to evolve a geometry that attempts to create the flow fields that we want,” the 67‑year‑old British engineer explained. “But, in truth, with a completely new set of regulations, nobody is ever sure what the right philosophy is. We certainly aren’t sure what the best interpretation of the regulations is and therefore the best philosophy to follow.”
“Aggressive”? Newey doesn’t see it that way
Newey dove into the overall design lines of the AMR26: “I never look at any of my designs as aggressive. I just get on with things and pursue what we feel is the right direction. It’s got quite a few features that haven’t necessarily been done before. Does that make it aggressive? Possibly. Possibly not.”
He emphasized how tightly packaged the car is: “The car is tightly packaged - much more tightly packaged than I believe has been attempted at Aston Martin Aramco before. This has required a very close working relationship with the mechanical designers to achieve the aerodynamic shapes we wanted. But I have to say that all the mechanical designers here have really embraced that philosophy. It hasn’t made their life easy, quite the opposite, but they’ve really risen to the challenge.”
A four‑month delay and a race against the clock
Newey also addressed the compressed timeline that left Aston Martin with only one day of running during the Barcelona test.
“The reality is that we didn’t get a model of the ’26 car into the wind tunnel until mid-April, whereas most, if not all of our rivals would have had a model in the wind tunnel from the moment the 2026 aero testing ban ended at the beginning of January last year. That put us on the back foot by about four months, which has meant a very, very compressed research and design cycle. The car only came together at the last minute, which is why we were fighting to make it to the Barcelona Shakedown.”
“The AMR26 in Melbourne will look different”
Even though the AMR26’s aerodynamic concept stunned the paddock, Newey admitted the car will evolve visually in the coming months.
“Those first couple of days at the track have been important to start building an understanding of how the car behaves and complete those all-important first systems checks before preseason testing in Bahrain. We’ve tried to build something with a lot of development potential. What you want to try to avoid is a car that comes out quite optimised within its window but lacks a lot of development potential. We’ve tried to do the opposite, which is why we’ve really focused on the fundamentals, put our effort into those, knowing that some of the appendages – wings, bodywork... things that can be changed in season – will hopefully have development potential.”
He added: “The AMR26 that races in Melbourne is going to be very different to the one people saw at the Barcelona Shakedown, and the AMR26 that we finish the season with in Abu Dhabi is going to be very different to the one that we start the season with. It’s very important to keep an open mind.”
The next preseason test is scheduled for 11-13 February in Bahrain while the first race of the new season, the Australian Grand Prix takes place in Melbourne on 8 March.
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