A nightmare wrapped in British racing green, led by a NASA scientist that took a wrong turn sometime in the late ‘80s, piloted by an ageing genius alongside a billionaire’s son and powered by the fragments of an uncommitted former force that has not grasped the most ambitious rule change in a generation.

Aston Martin and Honda have got something badly wrong. In F1’s newest reset, this latest formula was meant to be cracked by a F1 dream team of design staff that had been there and done it elsewhere, elevating the famous British luxury car marque to a new level of greatness, combining this influx of knowledge and experience with investment in a new wind tunnel and a factory and office complex that the biggest names in world sport would envy.

The car brand of choice for James Bond being owned by one by a caricature of one of its villains, aiming for his sidekick son to win immortality via Motorsport’s ultimate prize.

The run up to the era-opening Australian Grand Prix was less 007 and more it should have ended with someone shouting The Aristocrats!

Every statement the team put out in the build up was about managing expectations. The Aston Martin chef can drive the car. Maybe we shouldn't do more than 25 laps in case our drivers get permanent nerve damage. It turns out our exclusive engine provider’s staff all went off to make solar panels. It will all take time, we’re focused, we only have two batteries and they’re already in the car, not all the work is seen, we thank everyone sticking with us.

Hell, they deleted it, but they even managed to mis-spell Principal in one of their statements.

Then they had to talk to the stewards and tell them how good Lance Stroll is because he was unable to set a representative time in qualifying.

Then they were actually allowed to go racing, or as Stroll called it after being allowed, they “circulated” during an extended testing session while everyone who managed to start competed for points as the lights went out on the new unknown.

In short, then, a sub-optimal weekend. And it doesn’t look like there’s much of a quick fix on the way with Alonso saying that he’d do well to finish the race in Shanghai.

For the two-time world champion, he knows all too well about the perils of Honda power when it goes wrong, with his outbursts in Honda’s home race in 2015 after their famous “size zero” engine concept simply didn’t work.

How does it all go so wrong? Everyone knew about the new regulations a long time ago and most teams stopped or delayed development in 2025 to prepare for these new rules. Teams tried to maintain and mend rather than push forward knowing that the product of their development would end up in a museum at the end of the season. 

But at the same time, we’ve seen that historically, Aston Martin have not developed well. Go back to 2023. Red Bull were winning everything, but Aston were being admired by all corners for how they had started the year. Alonso claimed three thirds in a row. But while those three podiums were just half of the top-3 finishes they scored in the first half of 2023, they only achieved two after the summer break, which showed that they had stagnated while others found pockets of lap time that allowed them to catch up.

It will be uncharitable to say it, but they are partly being held back by their driver lineup. When Alonso is in a good mood, the whole team meshes together and he’s giving tips on how to drive the car. But when it’s like it is now, Alonso’s feedback becomes terse memes and Lance Stroll’s ability in an F1 car becomes exposed.

Stroll is not a terrible driver, let’s make that clear, but he’s also not world champion class. He has spent most of his F1 career shaking off the pay driver and nepo baby tags, and has had limited success. Now entering his 10th season, Stroll has never hit triple-figures for points in a single season and hasn’t finished in the top five since Vegas 2023. 

An irritable lower-middle order driver paired with a fading legend throwing yet another last roll of a loaded dice at racetracks around the world isn’t necessarily the lineup you need in a crisis. With the calibre of driver available, and the money that Stroll Sr could throw at a driver, if at least one of those seats was occupied by a driver who embraced the challenge, would the feedback be better? Would the development be braver? Is Stroll Jr really the driver you’d choose?

It feels like a crazy question to ask, but would the potential cancellation of April’s races in Bahrain and Saudi Arabia allow the team to get on par with these new regulations? It feels like a crazier question to ask, but maybe they would be able to finish a race? For all the complaints about the new formula, criticism has to be pointed at Aston Martin. “We can only drive 25 laps before potential permanent nerve damage” should be a more startling sentiment than “the drivers don’t like these new rules.”

How Aston Martin react will be fascinating as the season goes on, and the pace remains relentless with the F1 world moving to Round 2 in Shanghai. The long straight might create some issues with the so-called super clipping, but the Melbourne race was a race of two halves as the drivers got to grips on where to deploy and where to hold back. The new regulations suit brave drivers with intelligence. Being merely the fastest isn’t enough, now it needs some thought too.

In case you wanted to see how much F1 drivers lie

Wholesome from Cadillac

Even more wholesome from VCARB

Mick Schumacher is doing Indycar ovals now. Future blog idea: Schumacher in IndyCar vs Colton Herta in Formula 2

All the headlines in 2026 are video game references.

Development hell is what happens when a game gets stuck for years. Slow progress, disagreements, maybe some of the staff leaves and what starts as a promising idea becomes an urban myth.

Metroid Dread was one of those games, with the idea of the game starting in 2005. It was released in 2021. Here’s a video of how to take out the EMMI robots, who - if you’ve heard their soundtrack - will absolutely give you anxiety dreams.

PS: Two disclaimers:
- I do some work in my day job for a couple of F1 teams. Everything I write is based on publicly-available information, and sometimes that public information includes rumours.

- No AI is used in any part of this blog. All mistakes are mine.