Struggling Aston Martin hopes a new chassis puts it ‘back in the game’ at the Hungarian Grand Prix this weekend, chief trackside officer Mike Krack said on Thursday while also trying to manage expectations.
Honda-powered Aston Martin is 10th of 11 teams in the Formula One constructors’ standings with one point from 10 rounds so far.
The team that finished fifth in 2023 and 2024, and seventh last year, has been woefully uncompetitive in the first year of its partnership with Honda, despite having top F1 designer and serial title-winner Adrian Newey at the helm.
The cars brought to Hungary will bear a new chassis with significant aerodynamic upgrades and weight reduction.
The gearbox remains unchanged and will carry a more powerful Honda engine for the soon approaching Dutch Grand Prix in Zandvoort at the end of August.
“The reason why we do this is to go racing,” Krack told reporters at the Hungaroring. “We have not been racing over the last events and this is what we need to return to.
“Where we race in a big, competitive field we will see. This I can really not predict, but the key question is that we are back in the game, because we were not before.”
Aston Martin’s sole point, from two-time world champion Fernando Alonso, came from the race in Monaco after Cadillac’s Sergio Perez was demoted from his position at 10th — promoting the Spaniard to 11th on the road at the finish.
At the Belgian Grand Prix last weekend, Alonso was the last runner two laps behind Mercedes’ winner Kimi Antonelli, whose time in qualifying was more than four seconds faster than either the Spaniard or teammate Lance Stroll.
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Neither Aston Martin driver has gotten past the first phase of qualifying so far in 2026.
Krack said Alonso and Canadian Stroll, son of team owner Lawrence, would both have the same specification cars, with the old ones as spares.
“We do not expect that we get everything out of it in the first run tomorrow,” he added. “I think we need to learn how to manage this and how to get the best out of it.
“We have a good track team, we have a good support team from home that will go through that (the data) quickly and we will get the right conclusions quickly, but it will take a bit of time.
“I think the tests we will have to do, the basic tests -- be it ride-height, rakes and these kind of things -- will come over the next events.”
Honda’s Shintaro Orihara was confident the upgrade would not see any repeat of the vibration problems that plagued the car during the start of the season.
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Published on Jul 23, 2026