Former F1 driver David Coulthard has predicted Aston Martin will become a race-winning team within the next two years despite its slow start to the current campaign.\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/p>\n
The Silverstone-based squad commenced the sport’s new era under fresh technical regulations on the back foot with an uncompetitive chassis.\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/p>\n
Its struggles were deepened further by Honda’s underwhelming power unit, with the package languishing towards the back of the season for the opening half of the season.\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/p>\n
Aston Martin introduced its first major upgrade last time out in Hungary and gained considerable time, but was still left deep inside the midfield battle.\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/p>\n
Honda is due to deploy an upgrade of its own at the Dutch Grand Prix next month.\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/p>\n
While the 2026 season has so far been a painful experience for the team, Coulthard believes it has the pieces in place to become a successful outfit in the near future.\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/p>\n
\u201cI think even Aston themselves would go ‘we want this season to be erased from the record books’,\u201d he told the Up To Speed podcast.\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/p>\n
\u201cThat one point came courtesy of Fernando Alonso, of course, in Monaco in a race where there were more penalties than there were drivers.\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/p>\n
\u201cAston… really, really bad, we have to say it. Really, really bad. The summary was about a second coming from the engine, a couple of seconds coming from the car.\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/p>\n
\u201cBut mark my words, they will be the biggest improving team over the next two years.\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/p>\n
\u201cI will predict they will win grands prix in the next two years.\u201d\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/p>\n
Article continues below.\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/p>\n
\t\t\t\t\tCoulthard backs Newey to ‘get it right’<\/p>\n
Aston Martin’s form was a topic of intrigue ahead of the sport’s new era due to the arrival of renowned F1 car designer Adrian Newey, who has since taken on the title of team principal.\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/p>\n
The Briton has designed many championship-winning cars for various teams across his lengthy F1 career.\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/p>\n
Having worked extensively with Newey in the past, Coulthard has backed the 67-year-old to turn the project at Aston Martin around.\u00a0\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/p>\n
\u201cHe’s a racer, and what he doesn’t do is corporate PR,\u201d he said.\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/p>\n
\u201cWhat you see is what you get, and that’s actually why he’s the one person that can handle that.\u00a0\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/p>\n
\u201cAnd if that had been any other team, any other designer, technical director or team principal, then he probably would have been gone.\u00a0\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/p>\n
\u201cBut because it’s Adrian, you know he’s going to get it right.\u201d\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Former F1 driver David Coulthard has predicted Aston Martin will become a race-winning team within the next two…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":554346,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[9],"tags":[3518,3521,3519,3522,3520,3517,3515,3513,3516,3514,111,139,69,3512,213],"class_list":["post-554345","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-sports","tag-daniel-ricciardo","tag-f1-calendar","tag-f1-live","tag-f1-results","tag-f1-standings","tag-ferrari","tag-formula-1","tag-lewis-hamilton","tag-max-verstappen","tag-motorsport","tag-new-zealand","tag-newzealand","tag-nz","tag-racing","tag-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/554345","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=554345"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/554345\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/554346"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=554345"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=554345"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=554345"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}