Newey’s mea culpa: “The car was overweight and I risked too much on the aerodynamics”

Newey spills the beans Only Sergio Perez’s carelessness in placing his Cadillac – twice – on the starting grid in Monaco has meant that Aston Martin is not the only team without points in the Constructors’ standings. Fernando Alonso very honestly said that he didn’t like getting that point in the Principality like that and is waiting for the updates to arrive to make a decision on his future. At the beginning of the season in Melbourne Adrian Newey in a press conference before the race weekend had essentially ‘passed the buck’ of responsibility against a Honda power unit that was far from being competitive, but the telemetry immediately highlighted that even at the car level the Aston Martin was not at all at the level of the competition. The aerodynamics wizard admitted this when explaining everything that is currently wrong with his first Aston Martin: “Chassis-wise, we are definitely over the allowable weight – Newey’s words – partly this is due to the integration of the powertrain and the need to solve the vibration problems that we have faced together with Honda, but also we, for our part, have not done a job up to expectations in reducing weight. When you design in a hurry, weight is the first thing to be affected, because you don’t have time to optimize everything thoroughly.” “Even from an aerodynamic point of view we took a bold direction, driven largely by me without the luxury of being able to fully explore more concepts, because the weather was working against us – added Newey – I wouldn’t say that the direction we took was fundamentally wrong, but it posed challenges that we hadn’t foreseen”.

Automobile Magazine – Formula1 English, News

2026-06-30 08:50:00