Former Formula 1 driver Juan Pablo Montoya has revealed insight into the work methods of Adrian Newey, speculating that Aston Martin may be hiding some of its pace in pre-season testing.
The Silverstone-based squad enters the new era of F1 with the AMR26, the first car of the team’s to be designed by the legendary technical guru, who will also lead as Team Principal.
Newey’s creation caught the eye of other teams, media and fans when it first appeared on the penultimate day of the Barcelona ‘shakedown week’, due to its unique appearance, in comparison to rivals’ machine.
The first week of testing in Bahrain brought some negativity emanating from the team, with Lance Stroll claiming the AMR26 needed “four seconds of performance.”
Fernando Alonso went some way to quell the panic this may have caused, but admitted that challenges are faced due to vital components on the car – such as the gearbox – being made in-house, due to its effective OEM status as the only Honda customer team in 2026.
Montoya, speaking to Vision4Sport, theorised that the distinctive AMR26’s aerodynamic profiles could mean a clue as to which teams have interpreted the regulations right, but believes Newey will save an updated package for the opening round in Australia.
“Apart from the Aston, you look at every car, they all look the same,” claimed Montoya via Vision4Sport.
“So, it means either nobody figured it out or everybody’s sandbagging because they have figured something out.
“The aero packages are going to change a lot from now into Melbourne and knowing Adrian Newey, he is going to wait in Melbourne to run the package. Adrian is not going to run anything in the test.”
Montoya: Adrian Newey ‘never satisfied’, cites reliability as most key factor for 2026
Montoya spent a brief time with Newey, in what was the Colombian’s first season at McLaren, and Newey’s last, before joining Red Bull for 2006.
And that one year’s worth of experience of the 67-year-old is enough for Montoya to determine that Newey will not be entirely happy, even if the AMR26 turns out to be a success.
“Adrian Newey is a pessimist! So, it’s really hard to judge,” he said. “And I worked with Adrian. Adrian will say things are okay, but he’s never happy.
“When he built the Red Bull that won every race a couple of years ago, he didn’t think they had such a great car. And he won 90 per cent of the races.
“Reading Adrian is very difficult because Adrian is never happy and I think that’s one of the key reasons why Adrian is so good, because he’s never satisfied with what he has.”
The exclusivity of the Honda deal, Montoya believes, puts Aston at a disadvantage from that perspective, but is confident that if its power unit can be run at full tilt, the team will prevail.
“I think there’s a bigger question; where Honda is being a single car team in terms of reliability. Honda has one car and Audi has one car,” he said.
“In three days, Audi did 600 kilometres, Mercedes did 5,000 km. Ferrari did 4,800 km. As long as Aston doesn’t have to turn the engine down, then they won’t have any issues.
“The two big question marks for me revolve around, not so much on power, but more on reliability.”
Aston will be hopeful of making further progress this week, in the second week of the Bahrain testing programme, which commences on Wednesday.
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