Adrian Newey Confident Aston Martin Will Keep Fernando Alonso for 2027 as Spaniard Insists ‘I’m Not Moving’

• Aston Martin boss Adrian Newey says he is confident Fernando Alonso will stay with the team beyond 2026, calling the two-time champion’s contribution “important.”
• Alonso says he has “zero doubts” the team will eventually build him a winning car, even after a difficult start to the new regulations in 2026.
• The Spaniard pointed to the Hungarian Grand Prix upgrade package as a first step and said he feels “fresh,” “motivated” and “fast” heading into the break.

Adrian Newey has given his clearest signal yet that Fernando Alonso will remain with Aston Martin beyond this season, with the team principal saying the two-time world champion’s contribution to the team is “important” as speculation grows over his future.

Alonso, who joined Aston Martin from Alpine in 2023, delivered an encouraging debut campaign that included two second-place finishes and a fourth-place result in the drivers’ championship, but the team’s form fell away in the years that followed, leaving it working through a difficult start to 2026’s new technical regulations.

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‘Of course it’s important’

Speaking in Budapest over the Hungarian Grand Prix weekend, Newey was asked how much of a priority it is for Aston Martin to keep Alonso for the 2027 season. His answer left little doubt about where the team stands. “Obviously, Fernando is an amazing driver,” Newey said. “He brings huge amounts to the team, both in his feedback and his ability. So, for us, of course it’s important.”

Newey went further, saying he expects the partnership to continue. “I’m pretty confident that Fernando is enjoying his time with us and that we will continue with our relationship.”

Alonso: ‘Zero doubts’

Alonso had faced his own questions about his future earlier in the Hungarian Grand Prix weekend, and answered by pointing to his belief in Newey’s ability to turn the team’s form around. “It’s not that I need answers,” he said. “I think I have a pretty clear picture of the team, that we will fix all the problems. They take time, but I have no doubts, I have zero doubts that Adrian will provide the best car on the grid sooner or later.”

The Spaniard also addressed Aston Martin’s power unit situation, with Honda’s new-specification engine arriving at the Dutch Grand Prix after the break. “On the power unit, I think I have no doubts as well. It’s a matter of time that Honda fixes the issues. We started on the back foot, yes, we’re dealing with that process now, and that pain on the weekends. We’re working together to fix the issues.”

A first step in Hungary

Aston Martin brought a large upgrade package to Hungary, and Alonso said the changes marked a starting point rather than a finished product. “I would like to see the first step with this package, understanding after the first couple of races, and I think there’s going to be more to come next year, that’s for sure, and the years to come.”

He added that the true scale of the improvement would only become clear once the team returns from the break. “It’s just how soon the car will be competitive, that’s the question mark. Maybe the next two races will give us a little bit of a feeling for that.”

‘I feel fresh, I feel motivated, I feel fast’

The results have not yet matched the ambition Aston Martin set out with when this year’s new regulations arrived, but Alonso struck an upbeat tone about his own mindset heading into the break. “For me, I’m relaxed,” he said. “As I’ve said many times, I’m thinking I need to know what I do next year, and the years to come. I feel fresh, I feel motivated, I feel fast.”

Asked directly about his commitment to the team, Alonso left no room for doubt. “I do have a contract, so I’m not moving!”

A season built around one big update

Aston Martin’s approach to 2026 has stood apart from most of the grid. Where other teams introduced a string of smaller upgrades across the year, Aston Martin waited until round 11 in Budapest to bring one package of 16 new parts to the car, a bet on a single, larger step rather than a series of incremental ones. The chassis update arrived alongside a promise from Honda that a revised power unit would follow at Zandvoort, giving both halves of the car a fresh look within the space of a month. Newey, who joined Aston Martin as managing technical partner in March 2025 before adding the team principal role for 2026 after decades designing championship-winning cars elsewhere in the sport, has staked much of his early reputation at the team on that upgrade route paying off once the season resumes.

An outside verdict on Alonso’s year

Aston Martin’s midseason position has not gone unnoticed by outside observers either. ESPN’s Formula 1 writers included Alonso in their own set of midseason report cards for the grid, awarding him a B grade for a campaign they described as remarkable for a 45-year-old who has kept pushing through one of the toughest seasons of his career rather than shown any sign of easing off. The write-up pointed to Alonso’s record against teammate Lance Stroll in qualifying and the team’s only point of the year so far, scored against long odds at the Monaco Grand Prix, as evidence that the two-time champion remains capable of extracting more from the car than its raw performance would suggest.

That same assessment noted that a working Honda power unit for the second half of the year could finally give Alonso a car worthy of reminding the rest of the grid why he is still considered one of its best drivers, language that lines up closely with the case Newey and Alonso were both making in Budapest. Whether that translates into results once the season resumes at Zandvoort remains to be seen, but the alignment between the team’s own assessment and an independent one from outside the paddock adds extra support to Newey’s confidence that the current relationship has further to run.

Rebuilding the relationship with Honda

Alonso’s confidence that “it’s a matter of time” before Honda fixes its issues echoes comments made by Aston Martin’s Chief Trackside Officer, Mike Krack, after the team’s power unit partner ran its revised engine for the first time at a filming day at the Hungaroring last week. Krack described a difficult opening to the Honda partnership earlier this year, but said the two sides have worked through it together. “It’s easy to point the finger, but we sat together and we said, ‘We are in this together. We need to work hard to get out of it together,’” Krack said. “We knew that there would be a lot of difficult moments. We had more than one meeting where we discussed this, and I think it improved the relationship big time, in the garage, in the engineering office, and also in the whole technical collaboration between Silverstone and Sakura.”

Krack added that the team wants to reach a point where it can look back on the difficulties of the past six months and draw something positive from them. With the revised engine now confirmed to have completed its first laps ahead of its competitive debut at Zandvoort, both the chassis and power unit sides of Aston Martin’s project will be tested together for the first time once the season resumes, giving Newey, Alonso and the rest of the team a clearer sense of how much of the ground lost early in 2026 can realistically be recovered before the year is out.

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Written by

Jack Renn

Jack Renn is an editor at F1 Chronicle and a veteran motorsport journalist with 25 years of experience covering Formula 1 and international motorsport. A member of the Association Internationale de la Presse Sportive (AIPS), the global body representing accredited sports journalists, Jack has spent his career reporting from paddocks and press rooms across the F1 calendar. His work spans race analysis, technical insight, and in-depth features, giving readers authoritative coverage grounded in decades of firsthand experience at the highest level of the sport.

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