Adrian Newey has revealed that a number of factors left his first Formula 1 design for Aston Martin contributed to a “last minute” completion of the car.
The AMR26 broke cover on Thursday last week at the Circuit de-Barcelona Catalunya, immediately becoming the talk of the week’s test.
Featuring some unique profiles and traditional Newey finishing touches, the car will be expected to propel the team to greater heights amid F1’s new regulations cycle in 2026.
The Silverstone-based squad‘s technology campus has been increasingly growing via Lawrence Stroll’s financial interest, and is continuing to see further updates, partly via Newey’s troubleshooting of certain areas of the base.
And the team’s new wind tunnel, coupled with the manufacturing guru’s early-2025 arrival, were reasons why its schedule was behind that of its F1 rivals.
“It’s a completely new set of rules, which is a big challenge for all the teams, but perhaps more so for us,” Newey revealed to its in-house Undercut interview series.
“The AMR Technology Campus is still evolving, the CoreWeave Wind Tunnel wasn’t on song until April, and I only joined the team last March, so we’ve started from behind, in truth.
“It’s been a very compressed timescale and an extremely busy 10 months.
“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.”
Adrian Newey admits AMR26 has features that ‘haven’t necessarily been done before’
Tongues were wagging immediately upon first sight of the AMR26, due to its appearance, which sets it apart from the other 10 cars on the F1 grid this year.
To some extent, the car was always going to have expectations of aesthetic distinction due to Newey’s ingenuity, and once the initial images were released from Barcelona, many saw it as a statement of intent.
But Newey rebuffed any suggestions that the car might be deemed ‘aggressive’, but admitted that the car might possess characteristics that could be deemed as unique.
“I never look at any of my designs as aggressive,” he said. “I just get on with things and pursue what we feel is the right direction.
“The direction we’ve taken could certainly be interpreted as aggressive.
“It’s got quite a few features that haven’t necessarily been done before. Does that make it aggressive? Possibly. Possibly not.”
Newey has always been a designer to ensure ever milimetre of the car he is designing will be effective, guaranteeing a compact nature, and this one is no different.
“The car is tightly packaged,” the 67-year-old added.
“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.”
Newey will also lead Aston Martin as its Team Principal this year, and will no doubt be on the pit wall when the car takes to the Bahrain International Circuit for the two official pre-season testing schedules, commencing next week.
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