Formula 1 News: Lawrence Stroll's Aston Martin crisis deepens

(GMM) Aston Martin’s difficult start to 2026 has been compounded by serious turmoil in its road car division, intensifying scrutiny on team owner Lawrence Stroll (pictured).

The British manufacturer has reportedly posted losses exceeding 490 million pounds, and will cut up to 20 percent of its workforce this year – blaming US trade tariffs and a sharp downturn in Chinese sales for the disruption.

The restructuring comes despite Stroll recently transferring 50 million from the road car arm to secure long-term Aston Martin branding rights for the struggling Formula 1 team – effectively insulating the racing operation should the automotive side face deeper instability.

Former F1 supremo Bernie Ecclestone says success cannot simply be bought.

“You can’t buy the Formula 1 world championship title,” Ecclestone told Blick. “If everything doesn’t come together, you’ll spend your whole life chasing that big success. That’s why I feel sorry for Lawrence Stroll.”

On track, Aston Martin’s new era – built around Adrian Newey, Fernando Alonso and a works Honda power unit – has so far failed to deliver.

“Adrian is an artist. There’s no point Adrian managing a bunch of people because it’d be chaos. He would be the first to accept that. You want to give him the freedom as an artist to be creative.” — Christian Horner, High Performance Podcast 2021. So what did Lawrence Stroll do? He made Adrian Newey Team Principal managing a large team of people

Sky Deutschland pundit Ralf Schumacher believes the pressure is mounting.

“Aston Martin is facing a huge test,” Schumacher said on the Backstage Boxengasse podcast. “The expectations were raised enormously with Newey, Honda and the new factory.

“Right now, it looks like Lawrence is not making the right decisions.”

Schumacher criticized what he described as Stroll’s authoritarian leadership style.

“He hardly communicates and almost never gives interviews,” he said. “He’s acting more or less like an autocrat. I’m curious whether he can withstand the pressure from investors, because it seems like he’s making decisions on his own.”

The German warned that internal tensions could become the bigger danger.

“They must avoid destroying each other internally. This will be a huge test of patience. Alonso is probably enormously frustrated. Lance isn’t someone who stays cheerful when things don’t go his way. And Adrian is certainly disappointed – he imagined it would all be much better. The pressure is enormous.”

Much of the early blame has fallen on Honda’s new power unit. Alonso recently hinted that while confidence in the chassis remains intact, the engine side is “more difficult”.

Spanish commentator Antonio Lobato believes recovery may depend on the FIA.

“The engine is more difficult to fix,” he said in Marca. “But I believe the FIA will allow development windows. If one opens early enough, Honda could introduce a more powerful and reliable engine by the seventh race.”

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Paybacks are a bitch

Editor’s Note: Fernando Alonso famously called the Honda engine a “GP2 engine” (the predecessor to Formula 2) during the 2015 Japanese Grand Prix. Frustrated by a lack of power, he shouted over the radio, “GP2 engine! GP2 engine! Agggh!”. This occurred at Honda’s home race in Suzuka after being passed on the straight. The remark was made due to extreme frustration with Honda’s poor engine performance during their partnership with McLaren.

Alonso embarrassed Honda in front of their home race fans. People in Japan don’t just forgive and forget. Could this be a case of ‘Paybacks are a bitch’ given how bad of an engine Honda produced for what could be Alonso’s final year in F1?