Aston Martin are bracing themselves for a possible disaster at the Australian Grand Prix, with their car reportedly so out of sorts that the team might only be able to run it for a handful of laps.
The Silverstone-based squad will officially begin its new partnership with Japanese manufacturer Honda in Melbourne, and the early signs are ominous.
Reports of the team suffering a double Did Not Finish (DNF) circulated on Monday following a nightmare testing campaign in Bahrain last month due to engine and gearbox issues.
The team only completed a handful of laps as the car kept breaking down, with Honda later admitting there are serious problems with the power unit.
Those engine problems have led to a severe shortage of parts for the new car, and the team has reportedly reacted by raising the prospect of only running for the bare minimum number of laps in Melbourne.
F1 teams face heavy penalties for failing to line up for races, with rumours pointing to Aston Martin sending their cars out for a lap or two, then retiring them.
Aston Martin’s star driver Fernando Alonso will only be on track for a handful of laps at Albert Park if rumours about the team’s car prove true on Sunday
The team’s car is pictured in the garage during pre-season testing in Bahrain, where it spent most of its time instead of clocking up badly needed laps
The AMR 26 car is pictured being covered up before getting craned off the track in Bahrain after yet another failure
Another awful possibility is that the cars will be so off the pace that they won’t be able to get on the starting grid at all.
F1 rules state that drivers must set a qualifying time within 107 per cent of the quickest time set in the first qualifying session in order to be allowed to race.
After the disastrous pre-season testing run, there is no way of knowing whether Aston Martin’s car will be able to meet the requirement.
Formula 1 commentator Martin Brundle believes Aston Martin are in ‘dire trouble’ and doesn’t believe they will be competitive against the likes of McLaren, Mercedes, Red Bull and Ferrari.
‘It’s clear to me that the correlation between the wind tunnel – the digital wind tunnel, the CFD [computational fluid dynamics] – and the stopwatch on the racetrack, it looks like it is miles out, because the car didn’t exactly look stuck to the road (in Bahrain) when it was running,’ he said.
‘Honda was pulling out, then they came back in. They seemed a long way behind on battery recovery – on the power recovery – and reliability, they are churning through their cost cap on the motor side already, and with parts and batteries.
‘Aston Martin also has no data [to go on]. It’s a snowball effect for them, and they’re in dire trouble.
‘I’m sure they’ve got the resource and the brainpower to do something about that, but it’s going to take some time.’
Lance Stroll – whose billionaire father Lawrence owns the team – hardly got any time behind the wheel as Honda’s power unit got off to a disastrous start
F1 genius Adrian Newey’s design won praise for its radical take on the new regulations but his stint as team principal has had a horror start
Aston Martin ambassador Pedro de la Rosa admitted the team are still trying to understand the fundamentals of its all-new package under F1’s sweeping 2026 regulation changes.
‘There are so many things on the list to be tested that we haven’t had time to – physically no time,’ he told F1.com.
‘We have identified clearly what the biggest priorities are, but then you go deeper into these priorities and there’s a long list of other little things.
‘What makes it more difficult for us is that we need to integrate all these new elements. We have the new regulations, we designed our own gearbox, the rear suspension, we have Honda, and we’re working with Valvoline and Aramco on new lubricants and sustainable fuel.’
Meanwhile, Brundle has predicted a ‘slightly wild’ weekend at Albert Park due to the sport’s new regulations.
‘It’s a dramatic change, the biggest ever in Formula 1, and we’re right at the very beginning of it,’ he said as teams prepare for the virtual 50-50 split between internal combustion and electrical power.
‘Teams have got to find ways of replenishing the battery and for it to not dominate the lap so much, but I think they’ll quickly do that and migrate together in terms of how they want to charge and use their power.
‘But, in the beginning, it’s going to be slightly wild.
‘We’re going to get unreliability as well, much more than we’ve seen in the last few years, when the last hybrid engines became bulletproof, really, and so did the cars.
‘I think you’ll not think you have won a Grand Prix until you literally see the chequered flag.
‘We are going to see a lot of variability but we’re in a massively better place than we were in 2014 when the hybrid engines first came in because only Mercedes got it right then and everybody else was floundering around.
‘This is much closer.’
According to TAB’s online market, Mercedes star George Russell ($3) is the favourite to win the 2026 Drivers’ Championship ahead of Red Bull’s Max Verstappen ($4).
Defending champion Lando Norris is a juicy $11, ahead of McLaren teammate and Aussie Oscar Piastri ($13).
