{"id":508247,"date":"2026-02-27T20:37:08","date_gmt":"2026-02-27T20:37:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/508247\/"},"modified":"2026-02-27T20:37:08","modified_gmt":"2026-02-27T20:37:08","slug":"aston-crisis-deepens-stroll-pressured-on-and-off-track","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/508247\/","title":{"rendered":"Aston crisis deepens, Stroll pressured on and off track"},"content":{"rendered":"<p class=\"date\">FEBRUARY 27, 2026<\/p>\n<p>Aston Martin&#8217;s difficult start to 2026 has been compounded by serious turmoil in its road car division, intensifying scrutiny on team owner Lawrence Stroll.<\/p>\n<p>\t\t\t\t\t<a href=\"https:\/\/www.grandprix.com\/display\/photo?photo_caption=Lawrence+Stroll%2C+Italian+GP+2024&amp;photo_copyright=%C2%A9+Red+Bull&amp;photo_url=https%3A%2F%2Fphotos.grandprix.com%2Fjpeg%2Fraces%2Fpita24%2Fsun%2Fred%2Flawrence-stroll1-lg.jpg\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\"><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/02\/lawrence-stroll1-rd.jpg\"\/><\/a><\/p>\n<p>Lawrence Stroll, Italian GP 2024<br \/>\u00a9 Red Bull<\/p>\n<p>The British manufacturer has reportedly posted losses exceeding 490 million pounds, and will cut up to 20 percent of its workforce this year &#8211; blaming US trade tariffs and a sharp downturn in Chinese sales for the disruption.<\/p>\n<p>The restructuring comes despite Stroll recently transferring 50 million from the road car arm to secure long-term Aston Martin branding rights for the struggling Formula 1 team &#8211; effectively insulating the racing operation should the automotive side face deeper instability.<\/p>\n<p>Former F1 supremo Bernie Ecclestone says success cannot simply be bought.<\/p>\n<p>You can&#8217;t buy the Formula 1 world championship title, Ecclestone told Blick. If everything doesn&#8217;t come together, you&#8217;ll spend your whole life chasing that big success. That&#8217;s why I feel sorry for Lawrence Stroll.<\/p>\n<p>On track, Aston Martin&#8217;s new era &#8211; built around Adrian Newey, Fernando Alonso and a works Honda power unit &#8211; has so far failed to deliver.<\/p>\n<p>Sky Deutschland pundit Ralf Schumacher believes the pressure is mounting.<\/p>\n<p>Aston Martin is facing a huge test, Schumacher said on a podcast. &#8220;The expectations were raised enormously with Newey, Honda and the new factory.<\/p>\n<p>Right now, it looks like Lawrence is not making the right decisions.<\/p>\n<p>Schumacher criticised what he described as Stroll&#8217;s authoritarian leadership style.<\/p>\n<p>He hardly communicates and almost never gives interviews, he said. He&#8217;s acting more or less like an autocrat. I&#8217;m curious whether he can withstand the pressure from investors, because it seems like he&#8217;s making decisions on his own.<\/p>\n<p>The German warned that internal tensions could become the bigger danger.<\/p>\n<p>They must avoid destroying each other internally. This will be a huge test of patience. Alonso is probably enormously frustrated. Lance isn&#8217;t someone who stays cheerful when things don&#8217;t go his way. And Adrian is certainly disappointed &#8211; he imagined it would all be much better. The pressure is enormous.<\/p>\n<p>Much of the early blame has fallen on Honda&#8217;s new power unit. Alonso recently hinted that while confidence in the chassis remains intact, the engine side is more difficult.<\/p>\n<p>Spanish commentator Antonio Lobato believes recovery may depend on the FIA.<\/p>\n<p>The engine is more difficult to fix, he said in Marca. But I believe the FIA will allow development windows. If one opens early enough, Honda could introduce a more powerful and reliable engine by the seventh race.<\/p>\n<p>(GMM)<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"FEBRUARY 27, 2026 Aston Martin&#8217;s difficult start to 2026 has been compounded by serious turmoil in its road&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":508248,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[572],"tags":[944,855,884,911,898,64,63,839,840,892,936,937,922,864,868,843,512,874,906,897,817,836,904,848,845,826,837,813,835,816,867,876,894,841,842,833,908,887,860,909,930,914,939,886,934,832,834,858,941,875,861,850,870,854,900,866,846,880,943,889,878,823,881,863,933,935,910,859,913,844,923,927,896,926,883,938,932,806,805,824,803,804,901,871,852,849,888,872,891,915,822,838,918,916,857,879,893,869,931,885,924,847,882,851,865,925,928,942,929,85,920,921,902,862,919,917,873,940,905,912,895,853,856,877,819,903,899,907,890],"class_list":["post-508247","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-motosport","tag-abu-dhabi","tag-adrian-sutil","tag-albers","tag-alesi","tag-ammermuller","tag-au","tag-australia","tag-autoracing","tag-autos","tag-badoer","tag-bahrain","tag-barcelona","tag-benetton","tag-bruno-senna","tag-button","tag-cars","tag-china","tag-david-coulthard","tag-davidson","tag-doornbos","tag-f1","tag-f1-racing","tag-fauzy","tag-felipe-massa","tag-fernando-alonso","tag-ferrari","tag-fia","tag-formula-1","tag-formula-one","tag-formula1","tag-giancarlo-fisichella","tag-gilles-villeneuve","tag-glock","tag-grand-prix","tag-grandprix","tag-grandprix-com","tag-hakkinen","tag-hamilton","tag-heikki-kovalainen","tag-hill","tag-hockenheim","tag-honda","tag-hungary","tag-ide","tag-indianapolis","tag-inside-f1","tag-insidef1-com","tag-jaime-alguesuari","tag-japan","tag-jaques-villeneuve","tag-jarno-trulli","tag-jenson-button","tag-juan-pablo-montoya","tag-kamui-kobayashi","tag-karthikeyan","tag-karun-chandhok","tag-kimi-raikkonen","tag-klien","tag-korea","tag-kovalainen","tag-kubica","tag-lewis-hamilton","tag-liuzzi","tag-lucas-di-grassi","tag-magny-cours","tag-malaysia","tag-mansell","tag-mark-webber","tag-mclaren","tag-michael-schumacher","tag-minardi","tag-monaco","tag-montagny","tag-monte-carlo","tag-monteiro","tag-montreal","tag-monza","tag-motor","tag-motor-sports","tag-motorsport","tag-motosport","tag-motosports","tag-nakajima","tag-nick-heidfeld","tag-nico-hulkenberg","tag-nico-rosberg","tag-paffett","tag-pedro-de-la-rosa","tag-piquet","tag-prost","tag-racing","tag-racingcars","tag-red-bull","tag-renault","tag-robert-kubica","tag-rosberg","tag-rossiter","tag-rubens-barrichello","tag-san-marino","tag-sato","tag-sauber","tag-schumacher","tag-scott-speed","tag-sebastian-vettel","tag-sebastien-buemi","tag-senna","tag-silverstone","tag-singapore","tag-spa","tag-sports","tag-spyker","tag-super-aguri","tag-sutil","tag-timo-glock","tag-toro-rosso","tag-toyota","tag-trulli","tag-turkey","tag-valles","tag-verstappen","tag-vettel","tag-vitaly-petrov","tag-vitantonio-liuzzi","tag-webber","tag-williams","tag-winkelhock","tag-wurz","tag-yamamoto","tag-zonta"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/508247","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=508247"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/508247\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/508248"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=508247"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=508247"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=508247"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}