Aston Martin in disarray as Ferrari’s Charles Leclerc tops F1 pre-season testing time sheets
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Aston Martin's Lance Stroll speaking to the media before the afternoon session of Formula One pre-season testing at the Bahrain International Circuit in Sakhir on Feb 19, 2026.
PHOTO: REUTERS
SAKHIR – Ferrari’s Charles Leclerc topped the time sheets
The new Adrian Newey-designed Aston Martin car is radically different from the others on the grid, although all have undergone major changes as teams adapt to new regulations on chassis and engines.
The eye-catching Aston Martin ran into problems with its Honda power unit on Feb 19, when Fernando Alonso suffered a battery failure.
They were also short of spare parts and Lance Stroll completed only six laps on Feb 20 – two in the morning and four in the afternoon – before Aston Martin called time on testing two hours before the scheduled close.
“Overall, we are not happy with our performance and our reliability at the moment,” said Honda’s trackside general manager and chief engineer Shintaro Orihara in a press release.
“We collected data successfully; however, we didn’t achieve the accumulated mileage that we were targeting.”
Alonso and Stroll completed a total of just 128 laps over the three days – the equivalent of what many teams did in one day.
“It’s been a challenging couple of weeks here in Bahrain and today’s limited running wasn’t the way we wanted to finish the second test,” said Stroll.
“It’s clear the car isn’t where we want it to be performance-wise and we know there’s a lot of work ahead in the coming weeks and months.”
Aston Martin also missed almost two full days of January’s Barcelona shakedown.
Honda and Newey now have just two weeks to fix the problems before the teams gather in Melbourne for the opening grand prix of the new season.
Aston Martin‘s Fernando Alonso in action during pre-season testing at the Bahrain International Circuit, in Sakhir, Bahrain.
PHOTO: REUTERS
With teams still hiding their full capacity and testing different aspects of their cars, the time sheets were not a clear indicator of strength.
However, over the course of the shakedown in Barcelona and the two sessions in Bahrain, it appeared the top four teams – McLaren, Ferrari, Red Bull and Mercedes – will again dominate in 2026.
Ferrari’s Leclerc put in 132 laps on Feb 20 and threw the quickest time of 1min 31.992sec, heading world champion Lando Norris in his McLaren and Max Verstappen’s Red Bull.
“It’s still difficult to understand where we really stand because teams are hiding their true form, so it’s important not to focus too much on lap times and prepare for the first race,” said Leclerc.
Mercedes have been tipped as the car to chase in 2026, although Kimi Antonelli was brought to a halt on the track on Feb 20 by a pneumatic issue.
In spite of that, the 19-year-old Italian said he was looking forward confidently to Australia. AFP
