Aston Martin finally rolled the AMR26 out into daylight in Barcelona on Thursday, and for a brief moment the paddock got what it’s been waiting for: the first real-world glimpse of the Adrian Newey era taking shape on track.
“Brief” is doing a bit of work there. Lance Stroll didn’t get much more than a systems check before the day turned into a precautionary stop, but even that short run was enough to underline the point. This isn’t just another winter launch cycle; it’s Aston trying to reframe itself as a front-line operation in the first season of the new regulations, with Newey’s first design for the team and Honda now formally in the picture as technical partner.
The AMR26 appeared in an all-black test look and only emerged in the final hour of running. Stroll managed five laps before being signalled to pull over. The understanding in the paddock is that marshals noticed a potential issue around the car’s LED light system — the sort of thing that reads like trivia until you remember how tightly integrated modern electronics are across the car. Teams will always play it safe at this stage; if there’s any hint of an electrical gremlin, you don’t keep circulating and hope it behaves.
It’s not the kind of interruption that triggers panic in January testing, but it does steal the one commodity you can’t buy back: time. When a new car is also the first expression of a new technical structure, every lap has an added value beyond mileage. It’s correlation, it’s procedural rhythm, it’s learning how the group reacts when something unexpected happens. Aston will tell you — correctly — that catching a potential issue early is preferable to chasing smoke for three days. Still, nobody builds a Newey car to watch it from behind the garage door.
Elsewhere, the week’s obsession with secrecy took a predictable hit. Barcelona testing has been held behind closed doors, with security noticeably high, but you can’t lock down a circuit from the modern world entirely. A fan-caught clip of Lewis Hamilton spinning his Ferrari at the exit of Turn 10 made the rounds quickly.
Testing spins are rarely meaningful in isolation; if anything they’re often a sign a driver is pushing the edges of a new platform, probing how it reacts when you ask for something it doesn’t want to give. What’s different now is the ecosystem around it. Hamilton in red means every wobble gets amplified, analysed and turned into a narrative within minutes. In January, it’s usually just a driver taking liberties with a car that’s still introducing itself.
On the timing screens, Mercedes continued to look annoyingly comfortable. After Kimi Antonelli topped the morning session, George Russell went faster again in the afternoon and set the quickest lap of the test so far, becoming the first driver this week to dip into the 1:16s. His best was within a second of the fastest race lap from the 2025 Spanish Grand Prix — a comparison that should come with the usual testing caveats, but it does offer a helpful scale for where the baseline pace appears to be landing.
What matters for Mercedes isn’t just the headline number, though. It’s the impression of a team that’s arrived organised, consistent, and ready to run a programme without drama — the kind of winter tone-setting that tends to translate well once everyone stops hiding their true engine modes and fuel loads.
Away from the pitlane, Netflix confirmed it’s working on a new Michael Schumacher documentary, focused on his first title-winning season. The series is set to arrive this year and revisits 1994 — Schumacher’s first championship, achieved with Benetton in a season forever marked by the loss of Ayrton Senna and ending in controversy after Schumacher and Damon Hill collided in Adelaide.
It’s an interesting bit of timing. As F1 pushes into 2026 with fresh rules and reshuffled technical alliances, the sport also keeps circling back to its defining eras, repackaging them for a new audience. That tension between relentless reinvention and constant nostalgia is part of modern F1’s identity now.
Back in Barcelona, the immediate story is simpler: Mercedes look sharp, Ferrari are already a magnet for attention, and Aston’s big new chapter has begun — even if, for now, it’s only five laps long.
