Aston Martin rolled Adrian Newey’s first 2026 car out late in Barcelona and, predictably, the paddock did what it always does when Newey turns up with something new: it went hunting for the trick bits.
The AMR26 didn’t disappoint. Even on a first proper viewing – the first time teams have been able to pore over rivals’ new-generation machines up close with the active aero era now properly under way – there was enough unfamiliar geometry on the Aston to keep rival aero groups busy for a week. The double-pushrod layout and those horn-like elements around the suspension were the kind of “that’s… interesting” details that tend to look eccentric on day one and annoyingly normal by mid-season if they work.
But one conspicuous absence has become its own talking point: the small diffuser hole – the so-called “mouse hole” – that has been spotted on the Mercedes W17 and Ferrari SF-26. It’s a neat little solution in theory, giving the airflow another route to energise the diffuser’s inner surfaces and help keep it attached, effectively chasing more consistent downforce from the back of the car.
Former Aston Martin strategist Bernie Collins admitted she was surprised not to see something similar on the AMR26.
Design groups, as she pointed out, spend these early tests doing far more than watching lap times. They’ll be trawling through every photo they can get their hands on, trying to reverse-engineer intent: what’s structural, what’s packaging, what’s a decoy, and what’s a genuine performance lever. Collins’ take was essentially that even if Aston hasn’t committed it to the launch-spec bodywork, Newey’s camp will be all over it.
And that’s the key nuance here. The temptation in January is to frame these things as binary: either Newey has “missed” a trick, or he’s found something better. Reality tends to be messier. Diffuser concepts don’t exist in isolation; they’re tied to floor edge behaviour, the sealing you can generate, the wakes you’re managing from the rear tyres, and the balance you can sustain as the active aero shifts state. A “mouse hole” might be gold on one car and a headache on another if it trips a sensitivity problem elsewhere.
In other words, the lack of a visible hole doesn’t automatically mean Aston is leaving downforce on the table. It might mean Newey’s chosen an alternate route to achieve the same end, or simply that the current specification is a stepping stone to something the team hasn’t put on show yet.
What’s telling is how quickly other teams clocked the Aston as a proper point of interest. Sky’s Craig Slater relayed a description from within Mercedes that felt revealing in its choice of words: “adventurous”. That’s not the language you use for a car you think is merely tidy. It’s the word you reach for when something looks like it’s been designed with conviction rather than consensus.
That sense of conviction is also being felt inside Aston Martin. Slater described the atmosphere at the factory as something close to a culture shock, with Newey’s demands and methods forcing a different rhythm. It’s the kind of friction that can either sharpen an organisation or splinter it, and Aston’s 2026 story might hinge as much on how it absorbs Newey as on what Newey’s drawn.
The team has, after all, built a huge portion of its modern identity around the idea that it can out-think and out-execute the established giants. Putting Newey in charge for 2026 – he joined last year as managing technical partner and has now been installed as team boss for this new era – is the ultimate statement that Aston wants to stop being impressed by other people’s cars and start being the one everyone else is copying.
For now, the AMR26 remains a Barcelona snapshot rather than a final verdict. Matt Somerfield’s view from the technical side was that the level of detail suggests Aston’s car might be closer to what it intends to run at Albert Park than some rivals, but pre-season always comes with caveats: fuel loads, software maps, unseen parts waiting in flight cases, and development directions that only become obvious once the stopwatch matters.
Aston’s next public steps are clearer. The AMR26 returns to the track in Bahrain on 11 February for the first official pre-season test, a three-day run that will begin to separate genuine baseline pace from early-season theatre. Then comes a second Bahrain test before the circus heads to Melbourne, where the new season properly begins and the first Friday practice session arrives on 6 March.
By then, the diffuser holes might be the least of Aston’s concerns. Or they might be everywhere – including on the AMR26 – if the data says they should be. With Newey, the safest assumption is that nothing you see in January is the full story, and nothing you don’t see is being ignored.
