Aston Martin’s 2026 F1 car, the AMR26, made its first track appearance at the Barcelona pre-season shakedown on Thursday. The team flew the chassis into Girona the night before, and mechanics assembled it overnight at the Barcelona circuit, with the car rolling out late on the fourth day of the Shakedown. Lance Stroll completed the final hour of running, while Fernando Alonso was scheduled to run on Friday, as the team began collecting early data. Build delays forced Aston Martin to miss at least one of the three permitted test days, compressing its program and leaving reduced on-track time.

Dressed in an all-black livery carrying only an Aston Martin nose logo, the AMR26 displayed an aggressive undercut sidepod, an unconventional engine-cover solution, and a large gap beneath the airbox. This is the clearest view yet of Adrian Newey’s aerodynamic direction for the team. It is the first Aston Martin produced under Newey’s technical leadership after Andy Cowell stepped down. Newey now combines the roles of managing technical partner and team principal.

Aston Martin will use Honda power units for 2026 and will operate from new facilities at Silverstone, meaning the rollout also served as an initial check on packaging and power-unit integration. Owner Lawrence Stroll’s championship ambitions framed the off-season changes as the team aims to improve on a seventh-place finish in 2025. Honda cautioned that the power-unit switch may not deliver an easy start, and the late build, plus the lost test day, curtailed early development and reliability assessments, leaving engineers with limited time to evaluate the AMR26 ahead of fuller pre-season running and the season-opening events.

FIA president Mohammed Ben Sulayem met Christian Horner at the FIA headquarters in Paris earlier this month, with the governing body posting photos with the caption “Good to see you, my friend.” The FIA did not disclose the purpose of the encounter. Horner was officially in Paris to attend the Retromobile classic car show, which is marking its 50th anniversary and runs through February 1.

Horner has kept a low profile since his dismissal in July 2025 by Red Bull, ending a 20-year tenure that transformed the team. Since then, he has been working behind the scenes, contacting teams after the summer break, pursuing investors in the U.S. and the Middle East, and exploring two main routes back into Formula 1 (F1).

One route involves a consortium reportedly interested in buying Otro Capital’s stake in Alpine, widely reported as 24% (some sources say 26%). The negotiation has been publicly acknowledged by figures such as Flavio Briatore. The other is speculation that Horner could back a bid to add a new, 12th F1 team. Reports say early talks with Aston Martin showed promise before stalling.

Red Bull has agreed to shorten Horner’s gardening leave, meaning he will be free to take a new role from the end of April. Media reports have also cited a departure payout in the region of £52 million to £80 million under a contract that originally ran to 2030.

Journalists who covered the Paris meeting described it as cordial but offered no firm evidence of commercial or regulatory discussions. Sky Sports reporter Craig Slater said Horner did not raise the Alpine purchase or a new team plan during the conversation. Neither Horner, the FIA, Alpine, Otro Capital, nor Red Bull has provided official confirmation of any hiring, investment, or deal linked to the meeting. The combination of Horner’s low profile since July 2025, his involvement in investor talks around Alpine, and the publicized meeting with Ben Sulayem has renewed media and fan speculation about a possible F1 return, but no concrete proof has emerged.

McLaren’s MCL40 made its public debut at the Circuit de Barcelona-Catalunya during the team’s pre-season shakedown, with Lando Norris taking the car out after McLaren skipped the first two days of running. Norris completed 77 laps and posted a best time of 1:18.307 to sit third on the timesheets behind Mercedes’ Kimi Antonelli and George Russell, while Sky Sports’ Ted Kravitz and others noted the MCL40’s “more aggressive” appearance compared to Mercedes and Ferrari. Observers pointed to a detailed front wing, an expanded bargeboard region, and a strong floor–sidepod package, and McLaren chief designer Rob Marshall described the day as productive for systems data and driver feedback, reporting only minor gremlins during the outing.

Norris’s first impressions emphasized a marked improvement in straight-line acceleration under the 2026 regulations. The car reached around 340–350 km/h noticeably quicker than previous seasons, thanks to higher permitted electrical deployment, lower downforce, and lower wings in “straight mode.” He said cornering felt a bit slower and that the added battery and power‑unit management complexity made the car harder to fully understand initially, but that the MCL40 still “feels like a McLaren” with strong power delivery. The session was framed as an early learning exercise rather than a performance benchmark, giving the team baseline data on aerodynamic behavior, energy management demands, and reliability to carry into the remainder of testing.

Running with the traditional No. 1 was a symbolic milestone. Norris described seeing the number on his car, suit, and timing screens as “surreal,” and his run marked the first time McLaren had carried No. 1 since Jenson Button’s 2010 Abu Dhabi appearance. Norris acknowledged the extra scrutiny that comes with the championship number but said it had not changed his working approach. McLaren planned to continue its evaluation program with Oscar Piastri running the MCL40 the following day and further work scheduled in Bahrain. The team suggests that the shakedown provides an early technical direction, highlighting how drivers will adapt to altered handling and increased energy‑management responsibilities under the new rules.

During the Barcelona closed‑doors shakedown, Ferrari used wet conditions to evaluate a partial active aero mode on the SF‑26. The configuration kept the rear wing closed while flattening the second and third elements of the front wing. The team ran full‑wet Pirelli tires and logged telemetry to assess aerodynamic behaviour and hybrid energy trade‑offs. Charles Leclerc completed wet laps in the setup, and unofficial social‑media footage also showed Lewis Hamilton in the same configuration.

The partial mode was added in the December 2025 draft regulations, after earlier rules had barred active‑aero use in wet conditions. Under the 2026 technical package, active aerodynamic devices may change state on straights, close automatically when a driver lifts or brakes, and a separate Overtake Mode has replaced DRS. The FIA will publish circuit‑specific Activation Zones under Article B7.1.1 at least four weeks before each event, leaving teams with more activation zones than under the DRS regime. When fully enabled, those zones allow both front and rear wings to open and are usable every lap.

Drivers and teams said the 2026 cars already feel very different. They carry considerably less downforce, and the new systems increase cockpit workload by adding manual wing operation, Overtake Mode management, and a greater need to manage electrical power during races. The wet partial mode offers a degraded option that leaves only the front wing in its straight‑line configuration, giving teams a way to use active aero without opening the rear wing in wet conditions. Ferrari’s shakedown aimed to check hardware, tire behaviour, and the balance between aerodynamic gains and hybrid energy demand. An early test of how lighter cars and 50‑50 electric/biofuel power units will affect race operations.