Dec.1 (GMM) Aston Martin has quietly dismissed a paddock rumour that Honda may not be ready for the first 2026 pre-season tests – a theory floated in Qatar by former Alpine boss Marcin Budkowski, now working with Eleven Sports.
Budkowski suggested Aston would publicly frame the delay as Adrian Newey wanting more time to keep working on the car, but privately believed the issue lay with Honda.
The team denied the claim and offered no further comment.
Newey’s surprise elevation to team principal for 2026 stunned the paddock, and his presence in Qatar – only his second appearance at a 2025 race – coincided with a rare strong weekend for Fernando Alonso, who finished seventh.
“He hasn’t started yet,” Alonso told AS. “We saw him at meetings and for the technical aspects of the weekend. But he was an extra engineer on our side, an extra perspective on the setup, the strategy.
“It was good to see the focus, the determination he represents, the search for performance in every detail.”
Some believe Newey lacks the temperament for a front-facing team boss role, but Alonso pushed back.
“It’s very interesting because he’s very active,” he said. “He came to other races to observe, to listen and get a general overview. But now he’s very involved – the meetings with him are longer, and when we finish, he always asks two or three specific people two or three questions, sometimes even the drivers.”
“I think he’s going to help us improve, because everything he says makes a lot of sense and he also has a performance perspective,” added the two-time champion.
“Often the briefings are long, we discuss all the sensations of the car but there are no conclusions about how to make the car faster. He has those conclusions in his head and analyses them, so I think he’ll help us grow.”
Aston Martin’s 2025 struggles have been stark, with Alonso again emphasising how difficult the AMR25 has been to drive.
“The car is totally undrivable at times, much more difficult than it looks on TV,” he told DAZN.
Still, P7 in Qatar was a rare bright spot. “Happy? Wow, imagine! I’ve only scored – what – 30 points all year and I got 8 here,” Alonso smiled.
“All the sessions were in the top 10, and in the race, since you can’t overtake on this circuit and with the strategy everyone was already committed to the same stops, we just had to maintain position and it worked out.”
But the Spaniard admitted the underlying picture remains grim. “It hasn’t been a year to remember. We’ve had enormous difficulties. Even today, if everyone had had a clear track, I think we would have finished much further back,” he said.
“We qualify well on Saturdays, but on Sundays, on circuits where overtaking is possible, we gradually fall back.”
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