A downbeat Lance Stroll has cast doubt on Aston Martin’s ability to start 2026 on a competitive footing after a challenging start to Formula 1 testing in Bahrain.
Aston Martin’s AMR26 has been subject to intense scrutiny by media and teams in Bahrain, given the team’s radical interpretation of the 2026 technical regulations.
Featuring a high rake, sweeping sidepods and an aggressive cooling system, F1 waited to see if the Adrian Newey designed challenger could move the team to up the order.
But the car has proven difficult, despite racking up a competitive number of laps and not suffering a breakdown during the test.
Stroll lay bare the the severity of Aston Martin’s struggles, revealing the deficit to the top teams could be multiple seconds, a chasm in F1 terms.
“I don’t know,” he said to media, including Motorsport Week when asked how much time was needed.
“Right now we look like we’re four seconds off the top teams, four and a half seconds. Again, it’s impossible to know what fuel loads and everything people are running.Now we need to try and find four seconds of performance.”
Lance Stroll confirms gravity of situation
Revealing the deficit is not isolated to one area, Lance Stroll confirmed Honda’s new power unit is also potentially at fault for their issues.
“I don’t think it falls from the sky,” he said.
“You have to improve and find performance in the car and the engine.
“These are just usual things in F1.When you’re behind the competition, you have to think about ways to extract more from the package you have and at the same time also improve.
“No one stands still in this business. Everyone’s trying to find performance every way, every weekend, all the time.We’re doing that.
“We’re trying to extract more performance every day from the car. I think also longer term, bring upgrades on the PU side, on the chassis side.We will see in Australia where we line up, and then we will see throughout the season how we progress. We’re pushing as hard as we can, and that’s all we can do right now”.
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