Why Aston Martin hinted it'll start 2026 behind rivals
The Race F1 Podcast
The Race Media Ltd
4.5 • 1K Ratings
🗓️ 9 February 2026
⏱️ 35 minutes
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Summary
F1 launch season has reached its conclusion with Aston Martin and McLaren holding online launches and Cadillac revealing its livery in the fourth quarter of the Super Bowl. Jon Noble was in Saudi Arabia for the Aston launch, and he tells Edd Straw what he learned and why some of the language coming from the likes of Adrian Newey and Fernando Alonso suggests the team won't be at the sharp end of the grid in 2026 - at least to begin with.
There's also chat about McLaren's launch, the latest on the engine compression saga, and our thoughts on Cadillac's expensive TV commercial and interesting split livery concept.
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Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | The Athletic |
| 0:02.0 | The Races |
| 0:04.0 | The Races on and launch season reached its conclusion with Aston Martin and McLaren holding online launches and Cadillac revealing its livery in the fourth quarter of the Super Bowl. |
| 0:21.5 | So what did Adrian Uri reveal about his latest creation? And is there really anything left to |
| 0:26.2 | learn from these late launches? I'm Ed's draw and joining us to tell all is John Noble. |
| 0:33.3 | Well John, you're in Bahrain right now. You had a quick day trip to Saudi Arabia for the |
| 0:37.7 | Aston Martin launch. I was hoping to be able to know a little bit more about it. Because of the |
| 0:44.2 | delay, we're recording kind of as it's going out as live as the stream. So I've kind of got it on in |
| 0:50.5 | the background, but not really been able to watch it. So because it was recorded earlier in the day, you've already lived through it. So what was the big message you took |
| 0:58.4 | from it? Um, the message, it was a, it was a kind of a weird launch really, because this is Adrian |
| 1:05.0 | new his first Astor Martin car, he's team principal. So one of the big attractions of going to |
| 1:10.7 | the launch was to speak to |
| 1:11.9 | Adrian, get his feedback, get some understanding of the car, you know, amazing looking car, lots of |
| 1:17.7 | interesting tech aspects of it. But no, he didn't speak to us. He was late. They said he claimed |
| 1:23.1 | he was in some meetings, then he did his stage stuff, and then instantly rushed off. So we didn't get to |
| 1:27.9 | speak to Adrian. So all we got from him, small snapshots on stage. So it's mainly left to Fernando, |
| 1:35.0 | Alonzo and Lansstrol to give us. And I think there was no definite hint of any kind of we're in |
| 1:41.6 | competitive trouble or we're going to be gunning for race wins |
| 1:44.6 | from the off. Everything was very measured, very considered. But Fernando's that wily old fox, |
| 1:52.1 | so you can read between the lines of everything he's saying. And there were quite a few references |
| 1:57.0 | to him about playing the long game, that this isn't how we start the season in Australia. This isn't, if we find some troubles with the car in Bahrain, if we start slowly |
| 2:06.8 | in Australia, things aren't good in the first race, three races, four races, five races, |
... |
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