Vandorn: The balance of power in 2026 may surprise

      Aston Martin, like all other World Championship participants, is preparing to switch to next-generation machinery, but the British team's task is complicated by the fact that its power unit supplier will change: from 2026 it will be Honda.

      Stoffel Vandoorne, Aston Martin F1’s reserve driver, is determined to become increasingly involved in the team’s work both at races and at the Silverstone base, since he will now be noticeably less occupied in Formula E.

      “Now I can devote a lot more time to fulfilling my duties at Aston Martin,” the 33-year-old Belgian told Speedcafe. “So in the second half of the season I’m coming to more races, and between them I spend more and more time on the simulator, mostly before rounds. You could say we are gradually shifting focus to preparing for 2026, but current work on the car continues as well.”

      Vandoorne is used to combining his collaboration with Aston Martin with competing in other series, but last season in Formula E, when he raced for Maserati, was his last as a full-time race driver, and now Stoffel has become a reserve driver for Jaguar. But his endurance-racing career continues: since plans to move to the new Genesis Magma Racing team did not come to fruition, his services were again required by Peugeot, as we reported.

      “If we talk about the future, we are developing several plans, several different scenarios, both for the near term and long term,” Stoffel continued. “In general, we’ll see how it all unfolds.”

      At Aston Martin he is consistently involved in meetings that take place during preparation for a race weekend and those devoted to analyzing race results, he works a lot on the simulator helping the team select optimal setups, and he is in constant contact with both engineers and drivers.

      He knows Fernando Alonso from their time working together at McLaren, since they were teammates back in 2017–2018.

      “In my view, Fernando still has the same combative mindset,” Vandoorne believes. “But he has slightly changed his approach to working with the team and, certainly, being more experienced, he knows how to act in certain situations. He’s also changed a bit as a person.

      On race weekend days we communicate a lot with Lance Stroll. We’re closer in age, and we started racing in Formula 1 at the same time. We have more in common, so we just talk about different things. We also discuss how the car feels to drive, and I try to add some of my own comments.”

      According to Vandoorne, the team is preparing for 2026 with cautious optimism: “To be honest, at this stage no one knows exactly what awaits us. Certainly, the new technical regulations are very different from the current ones, and the approach to driving the new cars will change too. It’s possible that the balance of power next season could surprise.

      But for now all of this is only speculation. I believe our team has chosen the right direction of development, and we can hope that we will soon see the first results of that.”