Opting not to use Adrian Newey to develop the AMR25, Alex Brundle reckons Aston Martin have already “checked out” from the F1 2025 championship.

But, in light of the all-new technical regulations and their switch from Mercedes to Honda power, he acknowledges that preparing for next season is a “massive” job for the Silverstone team.

Have Aston Martin checked out? ‘Maybe that’s unfair to say’

Although Aston Martin scored points in the opening two races of the season, Lance Stroll sixth and ninth in Australia and China, they haven’t added to that tally since, with Fernando Alonso yet to get off the mark.

Such has been their struggles, Stroll was asked by PlanetF1.com in Saudi Arabia what strengths the AMR25 has, if any.

He replied: “I don’t think so.”

Prompted with a further ‘any at all’, he said: “I don’t think there’s any real strengths.

“We’re not the quickest car in a high-speed corner, we’re not the best car in low-speed traction. Maybe in straight-line braking, we’re quite okay.”

The team endured a difficult at the Jeddah Corniche circuit where they were well done on last year’s pace.

F1 2025 head-to-head stats

👉 F1 2025: Head-to-head qualifying statistics between team-mates

👉 F1 2025: Head-to-head race statistics between team-mates

In 2024, Alonso qualified fourth with a fastest time of 1:27.846 while this year his best time was only a 1:28.303, putting him 13th on the grid. Stroll was also a tenth slower.

As for the Grand Prix, there was no repeat of Alonso’s top-five finish from last year as the Spaniard missed out on the points in 11th place, crossing the line 75s after race winner Oscar Piastri. Stroll was lapped in 16th place.

F1 Nation podcast host Tom Clarkson was shocked by Aston Martin’s lack of pace in Saudi.

“Looking in qualifying, they were half a second slower. Despite throwing three sets of softs at Alonso in Q1, they were half a second slower than they were last year at this track,” he said.

It had commentator Alex Brundle pondering whether Aston Martin had given up on 2025, the Briton citing the team’s decision not to pull Adrian Newey away from the 2026 car to help develop this year’s AMR25.

“I get the sense that they’ve checked out from the season already,” he said.

“You look at it and you’ve got Adrian Newey standing in Silverstone, penning a 2026 car. Remember they are one of the teams that will have an engine change into next year as well, so they move to a Honda engine.

“It’s a massive job. Making a new gearbox, and I don’t know.

“You just look at where they are in the championship, they’ve been some points for Lance. I don’t know, maybe that’s unfair to say and they’ll bring some upgrades and come back to it.

“But it’s not looking great.”

Newey joined Aston Martin in early March, but the team has made it clear that the acclaimed car designer’s sole focus is designing the Honda-powered AMR26.

“I think the evidence would support everything you just said in that Adrian Newey is not investing any time on this year’s car,” said Clarkson. “And, I think, if they still believed in it, maybe he would.”

But in the midst of the “sad showing” in Jeddah, nine-time Le Mans winner Tom Kristensen found one key positive for Aston Martin – Alonso still has it.

“That’s what we hear,” he said of Newey, “that’s the public statement that he’s not working on it. But still, here at the Jeddah Corniche with Armco very much present as the main sponsor of the team, it was a sad showing.

“But still, definitely Alonso was tested for his reflexes when [Gabriel] Bortoleto went to the outside into Turn 1 in the battle with Hadjar. It definitely was well-saved piece of driving between the wall and the right-side wheels of Sauber’s Bortoleto.”

Aston Martin made in clear in Saudi that they have no intention of pulling Newey away from the 2026 car to work on this year’s machine.

“100 per cent of Adrian’s designing time is focused on ’26,” team principal Andy Cowell told the media, including PlanetF1.com.

“He joined in March, so there was a period of him getting up to speed with the regulations, up to speed with the concept work that we’ve been doing in the preceding couple of months. And there are some tough deadlines to meet for releasing monopod details, transmission details, and the cars are running earlier for the ’26 season.

“The test is at the end of January, so getting a car ready for that point requires a slightly earlier decision point. And clearly, everything’s new. There’s zero carryover. So there’s lots of work there, and Adrian has just been focused on that.

“He’s focused largely on the tools that we’re using, rather than any direct performance aspect for the ’25 car.”

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