Which way forward for Aston Martin?

The start to 2026 has been far from ideal for anyone linked to Aston Martin. This was meant to be a big chance to join the elite at the front of the grid on a regular basis, with new regulations offering a reset that could be taken advantage of.

With an enormous, stunning new factory – or "campus" as F1 team headquarters are becoming increasingly known, due to their multiple buildings and facilities – and the Honda works power unit deal, the addition of Adrian Newey to the design team should have been the final piece of the puzzle. Aston Martin has everything it needs to win. And yet, two races into the new season, it sits at the bottom of the constructors’ championship, with a car that is unable to escape Q1 when it is running, and similarly unable to complete a race distance so far.

Since the Chinese Grand Prix, there has been a different type of scrutiny on the team, too, with reports that Newey would be changing his role and a potential new team principal arriving. That Jonathan Wheatley’s name was in the running was already going to be a talking point heading to Suzuka, but his immediate departure from Audi at the end of last week meant all indicators are that he is the next arrival at Silverstone.

Should he take over the team principal role from Newey, Wheatley would be the fourth such leader in the past 18 months, also following Mike Krack and Andy Cowell.

This might seem like I’m setting up for a deep exposé of all the problems at Lawrence Stroll’s team, and there are many. But a lot of them were foreseen, and simply take time to address.

Ultimately, Newey is the final piece of the puzzle, or at the very least the biggest one, but the puzzle has not had all of those pieces put in the right places yet.

The overhaul of senior personnel at Aston Martin has been remarkable, and you wouldn’t take a position up at the team right now on the basis of guaranteed job security. But you still would on its potential, because there is nothing that is seriously lacking other than patience.

Patience with Honda, for example, where there were massive shortcomings in terms of experienced engineers and resource in the run-up to this season. A power unit that is unreliable and underpowered is the outcome, but recent history shows that the Japanese manufacturer has all of the required capabilities to produce something championship-worthy, eventually.

"Eventually" wasn’t supposed to be the word used when it came to Honda heading into 2026, but then it would have still been required for other aspects of Aston Martin. Honda’s previous partner – Red Bull – has been a race-winning and title-contending operation since 2009, and as such provided certainty to the power unit supplier in terms of direction, demands and engineering standards.

Aston Martin – or Racing Point, or Force India – has never been anywhere near as successful, and you don’t click your fingers overnight to suddenly become an F1 powerhouse. The facilities are there, and the personnel are too, but processes and systems are honed over years of repetition and experience.

Mike Krack, Chief Trackside Officer, and Adrian Newey, Managing Technical Partner, have some alarming numbers to crunch whatever titles they hold. Mark Sutton/Formula 1 via Getty Images

Newey knows that, and admits he has been demanding in terms of what he has asked of Aston Martin since joining a year ago. Those demands, at times, are likely to have clashed with Cowell’s previous authority as team principal and CEO, eventually leading the restructuring announced late last year that saw Newey take over as team boss.

It was never a role that suited Newey’s strengths, and never appeared to be a permanent solution. Unknown at the time to the majority of us on the outside, the team will have seen some of the problems that were on the horizon with the 2026 car and power unit, and will have been fighting fires at that stage.

Newey was still going to be the person you would want to listen to above all others, and until a team principal candidate could be identified and brought in who would give him all of the freedom he required, the 67-year-old held the reins.

And that’s been the source of the confusion in recent weeks. At a time when Aston Martin has been the focal point for all the wrong reasons – of which a huge amount of responsibility lies with Honda – Newey has had to front up on occasion, and has done so in typically forthright style. Then, when Newey hasn’t been available, it has been chief trackside officer Krack who has represented the team.

While the team principal not being present at the second race of the season in China would have been less of a topic had the season started relatively smoothly, the performance crisis Aston Martin found itself in only served to highlight how much the role does not lend itself to getting the best out of Newey.

The public struggles of the Honda PU put the Aston team in a bind, with uncertainty at the top coming just as all hands need to be pulling in the same direction. Lars Baron/Getty Images

As speculation over Wheatley’s potential hiring grew, Lawrence Stroll felt the need to issue a statement just 15 minutes after the Audi team principal’s departure was announced. And in that statement, Stroll reiterated: “We do things differently here, and while we don't currently adopt the traditional team principal role that you see elsewhere – it is by design.”

Leaving aside the fact that a traditional team principal position appears to be largely outdated anyway – see McLaren, Racing Bulls, Audi and Cadillac as examples of a CEO or head of project sitting above them – it still appeared to be a backtracking on what was previously announced.

Newey’s assumption of team principal responsibilities back in November was described by Stroll as a move “which will enable him to make full use of his creative and technical expertise,” and on multiple occasions referenced playing to his strengths, as well as operational efficiency.

That never appeared to truly be the case. Had it been communicated as a temporary solution, it may have raised even further questions relating to Cowell’s redistribution (though there were many anyway), but it would have avoided the current situation looking like a knee-jerk reaction to a horror start to the year alongside Honda.

Because a knee-jerk reaction it is not. Even a stronger start would still have seen Aston Martin chipping away at deficits to the top teams on many fronts aside from outright car performance. And for that, Aston Martin was always going to need a team principal figure to release Newey from even the slightest of shackles that can come with that position.

Be it through hiring Wheatley or for some reason another candidate, creating an environment for Newey to thrive is crucial, and would represent a significant step towards the team becoming capable of winning in the future. Freeing him up is the smart play, even if the past few months of limbo are unlikely to have helped the current situation.