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| Written by Keith Collantine
Aston Martin’s new Formula 1 car has run for the first time in pre-season testing at the Circuit de Catalunya.
Lance Stroll was the first of the team’s drivers to sample their new car, though it only ran for a few laps towards the end of the fourth day of the test. His team mate Fernando Alonso is due to take over at the wheel tomorrow.
The team is the 10th out of 11 teams to debut on track this year. Aston Martin was unable to join this week’s test early enough to participate in all three days of running available. Friday will be the final day of the first test.
The AMR26 is Aston Martin’s first car to use a Honda power unit. The team previously used Mercedes engines.
This article will be updated.
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Paul Grainger
29th January 2026, 20:18
Beautiful!
>Nose reminds me a little bit of the early 2010s force India with the bulge on the underside.
>Very high sidepod inlet akin to the pre ground effect Red Bulls.
>Incredibly shallow rear wing (I can’t see much endplate above the main plane?)
>Interesting detailing across the engine cover.
This thing will tank only because of the PU.
Zxc
29th January 2026, 20:55
What is beautiful? It’s an ugly car. The platipus nose is hideous.
Invisiblekid (@invisiblekid)
29th January 2026, 22:36
It’s not as bad as the previous platypus era, but it’s one I don’t want to see again.
Esploratore (@esploratore1)
30th January 2026, 0:37
I also like it, black is my 2nd favourite colour!
anon
30th January 2026, 7:33
Zxc, it’s probably the case that, since Newey is associated with it, it’s therefore going to be called a beautiful car.
Bullfrog (@bullfrog)
29th January 2026, 20:35
The one we’ve all been waiting for. Loving this —bare carbon cars, Williams keeping us in suspense, 75 times better than last year’s trying-too-hard launch event.
Leroy (@g-funk)
29th January 2026, 22:56
It’s been reported he only did a few laps because he broke down on track.
Renee (@renee)
29th January 2026, 23:22
Are these “photographs” actually some still frames from a video, or did someone who’s never used a camera take these photos? The pictures are too dark ant low shutter speed. For god sake, just use higher ISO and faster shutter. These aren’t some studio glam shots, we’d much rather take some heavy grain in the photos, if they actually would capture some detail.
Rick Gomez (@rgomez13)
30th January 2026, 1:35
I can’t imagine why they would release such a photo? I thought the idea behind the secrecy was to prevent teams from embarrassing themselves. You’re 100% correct in raising the iso. Perhaps it is a frame grab from someone shooting video at with a slow shutter. Pathetic
AlanD
30th January 2026, 2:31
Renee, I agree it is a poor photo. I was going to defend the photogrpaher, and say they wouldn’t necessarily have time to tweak settings to get an ideal exposure for a black car suddenly emerging from the garage. It is emerging from the right-most garage space, and you can see that space has loads of white ceiling lights, much brighter than the light out on track. If the photog had been trying to take pics of it in the garage, their camera settings would be all wrong for the brief glimpse of it in the pit lane.
However, if you think this photo looks poor, it looks even worse on their Instagram page where, for some reason, they decided to reduce it to monochrome, so it looks like a black cat in a coal cellar. The other photos on there look equally poor, so I think this is them thinking they are being dark, moody, arty.
The Dolphins
30th January 2026, 0:26
Didn’t even have time to put some stickers on it, this is some last minute development. I’ll be curious to find out why they were so late to arrive (end of 4th day) and if there was some re-development required as is suspected with the Williams car.
Jere (@jerejj)
30th January 2026, 7:06
The AMR26 looks good even in black & as of yesterday, only Williams remains without any 2026 on-track running.
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