Author Archives: PressBox

Aston Martin began the 2026 season with a catalogue of technical weaknesses that left the team struggling on track and braced for more poor results. Drivers and engineers have logged deficits across the car, and Fernando Alonso called Monaco “zero positives,” warning fans to expect “another four or five races of painful results.” The team reported severe mid-corner understeer in low-speed turns, which it said is a deeper problem than a simple setup issue.

Alonso and team engineers flagged specific failures in the opening rounds: an engine power shortfall in Australia, an energy deficit in China, a chassis weakness revealed at Monaco, and gearbox troubles in Canada and Miami. The team says these issues affected the whole package rather than being isolated to a single area.

Development timing and a power-unit change contributed to the struggles. Aston Martin arrived late to winter testing after switching from customer Mercedes engines to a works Honda power unit. The new Honda unit suffered power and reliability shortfalls early in the season; team ambassador Pedro de la Rosa said Honda’s reliability had recently improved, but the overall package still lagged.

Adrian Newey, who joined as managing technical partner and has since been promoted to team principal, said the team’s new wind tunnel only produced a model in mid-April 2025. He said that delay produced roughly a four-month development setback after the aero-testing ban ended in January 2025. The team said it must make the most of the ADUO (a mechanism allowing limited in-season power-unit development) and expects larger upgrade packages in the second half of the year.

Monaco underlined the performance gap: Aston Martin qualified 21st and 22nd, more than three seconds off Mercedes pole-setter Kimi Antonelli. Alonso climbed from 21st to 10th and secured the team’s first championship point of 2026 after a post-race penalty for Sergio Pérez and several incidents opened a rare opportunity. The result owed much to an aggressive one-stop strategy amid two safety cars, a red flag and seven retirements. De la Rosa called the lone point “special,” suggested the chassis could be as quick as the fifth-fastest package at some circuits, and urged patience and unity while the team prepares upgrades and further analysis to determine whether the understeer will persist.

Lewis Hamilton’s strong start at Ferrari has intensified his battle with Charles Leclerc inside Maranello, with former drivers and team figures saying the seven-time world champion is beginning to tilt the balance. Former Ferrari engineer Rob Smedley said Hamilton has been placed on a pedestal by Ferrari personnel and the Italian media, while David Coulthard said Leclerc has the maturity to handle the pressure but should not expect to beat Hamilton every weekend. Smedley added that the fight could still tighten later in the year, though he thinks Hamilton will ultimately “nick it.”

Hamilton won his first race for Ferrari at the Barcelona-Catalunya Grand Prix and followed it with podiums in Canada and Monaco after a difficult opening spell. He said the improvement has come from changes to his race team, race engineer and weekend approach. Leclerc’s season has been less settled, with crashes in Monaco and Barcelona qualifying, a late retirement in Barcelona after a power steering issue, and a broader lack of pace. Jacques Villeneuve said Leclerc benefited when Hamilton was underperforming last year, but now faces a more capable and fully adapted teammate.

The gap between the Ferrari drivers has continued to grow. After Barcelona, Hamilton led Leclerc by 40 points, and the latest standings have Hamilton second overall, 41 points behind Kimi Antonelli, with Leclerc fourth and 40 points behind Hamilton. Leclerc’s long-term contract extension gives him time to respond rather than needing an immediate turnaround, and Smedley said he expects the Ferrari academy product to recover from the setback.

Mercedes has identified a fault in its F1 power unit battery as the likely cause of the costly retirements that hit George Russell and Kimi Antonelli, and the team is working on a permanent fix. Russell’s Canadian Grand Prix ended while he was leading, while Antonelli retired from second place in Barcelona after a similar failure. Technical director James Allison said the battery was the source of the reliability issue after examining Antonelli’s car.

Allison said the two failures were not identical, but both came from the same broad area of the battery. Mercedes is developing new modules to improve reliability across its cars, and it has already narrowed down most of the risk areas. The team is taking a cautious short-term approach while engineers work toward a lasting solution, but it has not given a timeline for the repair. Mercedes heads into four race weekends in five weeks, starting with Austria next weekend.

The problem has hurt Mercedes’ constructors’ title fight, with team principal Toto Wolff saying after Barcelona that the team could not afford repeated DNFs and would investigate the issue thoroughly. The retirements cost Mercedes potential podium finishes while its cars were running in strong positions. Mercedes did not say whether McLaren’s recent electrical issues were linked to the fault it found, and former driver David Coulthard said reliability problems could worsen as the 2026 season progresses, even as he still viewed Mercedes as having the strongest overall package on the grid.