Fernando Alonso reveals early Adrian Newey and Honda impact at Aston Martin

Fernando Alonso has described the current environment at Aston Martin, claiming "motivation is really high", despite a difficult start to the F1 season.

The two-time F1 champion has attributed the positive atmosphere to Adrian Newey joining the Silverstone squad as managing technical partner and the upcoming arrival of Honda as the team's power unit partner, as well as the dawn of a new regulations era and its state-of-the-art wind tunnel coming online.

Aston Martin - and Alonso - have been mired by an underwhelming campaign thus far.

All 10 of its points have come from Lance Stroll, who started the year strongly, although the team finds itself languishing in seventh in the constructors' standings.

For the Spaniard, it has been his worst start to a championship since 2017, when he went scoreless until round eight with McLaren.

However, with Newey at the helm of the team's designs for the impending rules overhaul and the Japanese car giant also moving over from Red Bull, there is reason for optimism.

Last year, as Aston Martin started to struggle, Alonso expressed his desire for the team to build momentum into the current season.

Although he does not feel doing so is as critical this time around due to the power unit and chassis changes taking place over the winter.

When asked how important momentum would be heading into the regulations refresh, the 43-year-old explained why it matters less for 2026.

"Less important," Alonso told media including RacingNews365. "Less important than last year, because this year’s cars are a continuation of last year’s.

"The last race in Abu Dhabi… I don’t think that the results that we are seeing now are very different compared to Abu Dhabi and the first four races.

"So I think next year is a completely new set of regulations that completely reset what you learn this year. Maybe it’s not super useful for next year in terms of aerodynamics on the car."

High momentum regardless of results

The 32-time grand prix winner highlighted the mental advantage that finishing the year well can produce, but maintained that motivation is "super high" at Aston Martin anyway, given the internal changes taking place.

"Obviously, you always want to finish the season on a high and keep the motivation high for everybody," he added. 

"But I think the motivation in the team is super high anyway because, as we said many times, we have our wind tunnel now working since a few weeks ago, we have Adrian in the team, we have Honda coming, new regulations, so the motivation is really high."