Adrian Newey’s AMR26 is already generating intense discussion among paddock insiders. While the Honda power unit appeared immature during the Barcelona shakedown, the British designer’s latest car impressed with several drastic design choices. Beyond the highly aggressive suspension layout, there is also speculation about an extreme cooling system featuring curved 3D radiators.
Mixed feelings are being experienced within Aston Martin. There is great satisfaction at having managed to debut the AMR26 with Lance Stroll late on Thursday afternoon, during the final stages of the fourth of five shakedown days in Barcelona, before gathering valuable data through the 66 laps completed by Fernando Alonso on the final available day.
At the same time, there is significant concern about the potential competitiveness threshold of a car that arrived late and still has to discover the optimal integration with Honda. The Japanese manufacturer, it is worth recalling, announced its withdrawal from Formula 1 in 2021 while winning world championships one after another with Red Bull and Max Verstappen.
In line with their tradition, Honda dismantled their Formula 1 structure and, when they decided to return in 2026 as Aston Martin’s exclusive power unit supplier, they were forced to rebuild a new group lacking the necessary experience. It should therefore come as no surprise if the RA626H power unit appeared very immature during its Catalan debut.
It was fortunate that the Silverstone-based team managed to get the AMR26 on track, otherwise these early reliability and integration issues would only have emerged in Bahrain, where instead the first corrective measures can already be introduced. The entire staff has been subjected to extraordinary efforts to collect extremely valuable data needed to guide further development.
The first Aston Martin designed by Adrian Newey immediately polarised the attention of the paddock, as the British genius deployed his concepts by pushing some of his long-standing design philosophies to the extreme. The few carefully selected images released so far have not allowed observers to capture all the details of the black car that will soon turn green.
Multilink arms front and rear, above and below
The attention of technical insiders was drawn to the rear suspension, which revealed the upper “wishbone” rear attachment mounted to the rear wing support pylon. This solution allowed the British designer to raise all the suspension arms and free up the lower airflow directed towards the diffuser.
However, the most striking feature lies elsewhere. Aston Martin appears to have eliminated traditional wishbones altogether from the suspension layout. At all four corners, both above and below, Adrian Newey is believed to have implemented multilink arms, making the connection to the uprights more complex but allowing far greater freedom to exploit the aerodynamic function of the suspension links in directing airflow, while still maintaining kinematics that enable the Pirelli tyres to operate within their optimal window.
Narrow sidepods with curved 3D radiators
Another major area of interest concerns the shape of the sidepods. Beyond the high-mounted inlet, following a concept appreciated at Aston Martin and previously explored extensively by Newey during his time at Red Bull, what truly stands out is how slim the bodywork appears, deeply undercut in the lower section and sloping aggressively along the upper surface.
This apparent squaring of the circle would only be possible through the adoption of radiators no longer based on linear shapes. The regulations now allow greater freedom of design, no longer constrained by cost limitations as in the later years of the ground-effect era. Newey had already experimented with 3D-shaped cooling masses on the RB19, and he now seems intent on pushing this concept even further on the Aston Martin.
These solutions will not be exclusive to the “green car”, but the AMR26 is expected to represent the most extreme interpretation seen so far.
In short, these are radical solutions that rivals will not be able to copy in the short term.
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