Fernando Alonso says even if Aston Martin insisted Adrian Newey to have a look at its F1 2025 car and note where it can improve, he kept his focus on 2026 fully.
Newey joined Aston Martin at the onset of 2025 F1 season, but with full focus on 2026 and beyond rather than anything on the current car. There was zero involvement of the design guru on 2025 as Alonso noted – even if the team insisted him to have a look at it to share his ideas.
Alonso likes how Newey is fully into 2026 mode, where the Brit is not just thinking about the first few races, but already has an idea about the updates to come later in the year. The Spaniard doesn’t gets much time to see him, but they do have coffee conversations here and there.
“Yes [we chat], when I get the chance,” said Alonso to media. “But now I saw him in a concert [before summer break]. So he’s not available now. [His contribution to 2025 is] zero. Yes, it was never his priority from day one. Even if we probably all insist a little bit to have a look at it.
“He is very focused on next year. He has his own way. It’s great to see him working and thinking in things or problems that we may face, even by race 7, after some of the first upgrades and things like that. It’s incredible,” summed up Alonso, who is on an upward swing off-late in F1 2025.
Even with the steps taken this year to put Aston Martin firmly in the fight for fifth, Alonso doesn’t think they will use much in 2026. They can only correlate the basics like how the updates work and windtunel, which they think is okay and already checked upon.
“The cars are so different and difficult to really learn anything on this year that it will be applicable next year,” he said. “All the things that we wanted to learn from this year’s car, upgrades, wind tunnel information, things like that, is already OK and checked. Now it’s just waiting for January and see how fast we can be.”
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