‘One of the best moments we’ve had’ – De la Rosa on how Aston Martin’s risky upgrade strategy paid off

Pedro de la Rosa has delved into “one of the best moments we've had so far” when Fernando Alonso shared his approval of Aston Martin's upgrade package in Hungary, with the squad's Team Representative admitting that he was “very nervous” about their unique schedule.

The beginning of the season came with plenty of challenges for the Silverstone-based outfit as they struggled with reliability issues and a lack of performance, leading them to focus their efforts on delivering a B-spec of the 2026 car in Round 11.

It seemed like a bold approach, especially at a time when their rivals were spreading upgrades over multiple race weekends, but it paid off – the heavily revised AMR26 got ahead of Cadillac and Williams in Qualifying before further progress came in the form of a new Honda power unit in the Netherlands.

On the latest episode of the official F1 podcast Beyond The Grid, De la Rosa provided some insight into just how much relied on the success of the upgrades.

‘Everything worked as planned’

De la Rosa conceded that he wasn’t certain just how much performance the changes would bring, but it didn’t take long for Alonso to give his verdict.

“I would lie if I said I was not very nervous because you are expecting, you are hoping, you've been waiting a long time, and then the car just starts,” he said. “I looked at the car and the side pods were so small, the radiators look the smallest I've ever seen in my life.

“And I thought ‘OK, the aero numbers are promising, but maybe the cooling is not enough.’ Or you start thinking about many other scenarios where I've been, because I've been in most of the most unwanted scenarios in F1. But everything worked as planned.

“Then after the installation lap, you looked around and the people were relieved because everything was working as expected. With Fernando, I know him so much that we look at the eyes. I always try to be at the front of the car when he comes in after a run. He looks at me, I look at him, and I know exactly what he's thinking.

“I don't even need to listen to the radio. And his eyes look like, ‘yes, it's working.’ Sometimes we've had upgrades in the past and I look at him and he immediately doesn't want to look at my eyes. When he tries to refuse the eye contact, I know we are in trouble. But that time he looked and he was just like, ‘yeah, it's there, it's there.’

“It was a very exciting moment. You always have to focus on things you can change, you can do, you can improve. That was, OK, not where we wanted to be, I repeat again, but it was one of the best moments we've had so far this season.”

With ongoing speculation around Alonso’s future in the sport, his reaction was the boost the team needed, although De la Rosa stated that the upgrades were never going to sway the Spaniard.

Asked whether the strategy risked losing their star driver, he replied: “I think that decision was never based [on] if we lost anyone or anything. I think that Fernando, whatever his decision will be, you have to believe in a project, you know, not if the car is quick on the next race.

“I think Fernando is so wise, he's learned so much, that it's either you believe in the project or you don't. It's not whether we managed to improve the car for the summer break as we were expecting.”

Being ‘in good hands’ with Adrian Newey

One of the factors that made Aston Martin’s initial difficulties such a shock to fans was last season’s addition of Adrian Newey, who is widely regarded as one of the most successful car designers in the sport’s history.

With years of experience at teams like Williams and Red Bull, many believed that the Briton would quickly transform Aston Martin and take them closer to the front in his latest role as Team Principal.

While it hasn’t gone that way quite yet, De la Rosa was satisfied with how easily Newey has settled into the outfit and offered a new interpretation of the traditional team boss responsibilities.

“I must say that Team Principal is a title,” he explained. “It's not a job description. Adrian has said it many times. We are fortunate in the team having Mike Krack as well, an experienced Team Principal, now chief track operations.

“But when Adrian is not at the racetrack, Mike acts like a Team Principal. I think we have a very luxurious situation where we have people working in different areas covering for when Adrian is not here. Other teams have different structures.

“It's quite ambiguous now what a Team Principal job description really is. In my time, you had a Team Principal that was taking all the decisions. But now you have a Team Principal and normally you also have a CEO on top of them. I think that we have a very good structure. As long as Adrian feels comfortable and competitive, we're in good hands.”

Taking steps towards where they want to be

Aston Martin have made it clear that scrapping for points – which they’ve achieved on two occasions in 2026 with Alonso – is far from their ultimate goal, but they’ve got some catching up to do in relation to the frontrunners.

Despite De la Rosa’s admission that F1 is “a business where you arrive always too late”, he was enthused by the progress they’d made, and determined to make even more.

“I think that we are in the upward trend,” he concluded. “I've said it in Australia this year, when we started this, we were nowhere. But all we need to do is improve and never stop improving.

“Obviously, our strategy was different. We didn't improve until the summer, but we've made a big step. We are now in a position we cannot stop. It's just a race of time. The people have done a better job than us. That's why they're winning. We just have to slowly chip away all this difference. That’s where we are.

“Everyone has to feel accountable for the results. Everyone has to feel super motivated. We have an amazing partner in Honda that we've managed to survive very difficult times together. We can’t stop and we won't stop.

“We can do it. It's just a matter of never stop the development path that we are in right now. The only teams that do win are the ones that make the right investments. I believe I'm in the right team that is definitely making the right investments.”

To listen to this week’s episode of Beyond The Grid, simply hit go on the audio player above or click here to listen via your preferred podcasting platform.

You can also check out a huge selection of previous episodes – spanning every decade of F1 – in our dedicated Beyond The Grid library.

You can also watch the podcast on the F1 YouTube channel.