Racing
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Jenson Button says Aston Martin’s long-awaited Hungarian Grand Prix upgrade will not rescue its 2026 Formula 1 season, warning the team has “no quick fix” for its current performance problems and that the package should be viewed only as “a step in the right direction.”
Button said Aston Martin has deliberately gone through the season without bringing regular updates, instead holding back development for one major package due in Hungary. Even with that change, he said he does not expect the team to suddenly fight for podiums or wins.
The scale of the deficit explains why. Button said Aston Martin is running near four seconds a lap off pole position, and argued that even a gain of two and a half seconds would leave the team only just in the mix for Q2. He described that scenario as mediocre and added that finding more than two seconds through an aerodynamic package alone does not look realistic.
Speaking at a Viagogo media event, Button said the first target has to be more modest. “First of all, racing competitively with other cars on the track,” he said. He added that Aston Martin’s lack of updates all year was the result of committing resources to this one major development step, rather than following the more common modern pattern of smaller upgrades at regular intervals.
Button said Aston Martin’s difficult season was predictable to a degree because of how late key parts of the project came together. Adrian Newey only joined in March 2025, while the Honda deal was finalized late for what Button described as a completely new project. He also pointed to Honda having dismantled its Formula 1 operation after deciding to leave at the end of 2021 before reversing that decision two years later, by which point rival manufacturers had already been developing this season’s power unit. According to Button, the AMR26 was also hit by a four-month development delay, while the team is still maturing into the kind of operation needed to match the front-running giants.
That is why Button framed the rebuild as a longer process rather than a single-upgrade turnaround. “It’s not a quick fix in Formula 1 when you’re racing against the likes of McLaren, Mercedes, Ferrari, Red Bull,” he said. “These teams are the best in the business, and it is very difficult to lift yourself up from where Aston are and bring themselves to the front in a 12-month period.”
Even so, Button said he remains convinced Aston Martin has the right technical leader for the job. He said he believes in Newey and called his record across multiple teams phenomenal, adding that he had raced against many of Newey’s cars and been beaten by many of them.
That confidence is aimed at the medium term, not the next few races. Button said Aston Martin’s big Hungary package will not produce race-winning form, but should begin an improvement curve that carries into 2027 and 2028 under Newey’s direction with Honda.