2026 Aston Martin Aramco Formula One Team

[mzso]

Meanwhile Ferrari and Shell are bringing an upgraded fuel and engine to Austria.

Yes, Shell is involved. The fuel supplier. People talk about weakest engine but face it folks, your ICE is limited by your fuel combustion energy. Yes, Honda and Aramco DO have work to do. Pinning it on Honda's incompetence, weakest engine, broken promises that were never made and all that shaming by the posters here lowered the quality of this forum.
Why? Because the whiners here only complain about results and don't care to peel back the layers to understand where the deficits actually are coming from.

I expect it to be hard and difficult, and the challenge is what makes it worth while to participate and follow.

You always have your own narrative. Honda's failings are beyond doubt. As well as that of the chassis and now evidently also the gearbox.
Fuel quality issues only originate from you.

[FNTC]

Honda has been a disaster this rule cycle. Where is the ADUO-upgraded engine?? AUDI tested theirs a couple of days ago, Ferrari is working on theirs. Honda is talking about after the summer break, which is embarrassing.
Aston themselves have not been great either, but this nonsense trying to blame it all on the Aramco fuel smells of some sort of Japanese nationalism. Accept the fact that Honda messed up royally, Aston did to, especially with the gearbox.

*mod edit - removed personal

[bigblue]

I have my suspicions, Not based in any facts, that the majority of the AMR26's gearbox problems are explained as "gearbox" problems but are really PU drivability issues... I think after Newey had the big finger point incident at the beginning of the year, AMR F1 are avoiding pointing at Honda's PU as a cause of problems.

It's not too hard to see Honda messed-up (and by some way). It's also not too hard to see that Aston did as well. The initially unreliable PU and PU installation/integration also limited running, which will have made optimisation and testing extremely difficult in pre-season testing and the early part of the season. On the other hand, there seems to have been a real last-minute coming together of the whole car and particularly the gearbox, which meant little or no installation/integration work before pre-season testing. The chassis and aero doesn't exactly cover itself in glory either. It's a big mess on all sides.

Another point to consider is that it's not like they have a weak PU but everything works together, as well as reliability issues, I'm guessing the shift quality and regeneration strategies are totally immature, and no doubt all the software around PU driveability and coordination with the gearbox is the same. It's probably like alpha-release software (just about barely works).

In the specific case of Barcelona, the gearbox issue was stated by Stroll as "I had to retire the car because of a gearbox issue; I couldn't get third or fourth gear for the last couple of laps. We'll investigate it further after the race", so this particular case seems likely to have been a genuine gearbox problem, or maybe hydraulics.

[bigblue]

Honda has been a disaster this rule cycle. Where is the ADUO-upgraded engine?? AUDI tested theirs a couple of days ago, Ferrari is working on theirs. Honda is talking about after the summer break, which is embarrassing.

They have much bigger problems than the other teams, and probably have more numerous and more fundamental changes to make. They've also presumably lost some of the available effort firefighting the problems from the start of the season.

We also don't know how far along any gearbox / chassis / aero modifications are. You can always do more with more time, so the team will have chosen their timeline based on what's possible when, and how long to develop for.

[Brahmal]

I have my suspicions, Not based in any facts, that the majority of the AMR26's gearbox problems are explained as "gearbox" problems but are really PU drivability issues... I think after Newey had the big finger point incident at the beginning of the year, AMR F1 are avoiding pointing at Honda's PU as a cause of problems.

The guy they brought over from Merc is basically the guy that designed the Merc gearbox cassette and internals the previous years.

This Merc fellow was never going to show up and whip out a great transmission all by himself: a from-scratch project like this requires a bunch of people with their own specialities to come together as a team, and that process takes time. Years. To expect AMR to produce a good or even average transmission integration on their first go is simply not realistic.

[diffuser]

I have my suspicions, Not based in any facts, that the majority of the AMR26's gearbox problems are explained as "gearbox" problems but are really PU drivability issues... I think after Newey had the big finger point incident at the beginning of the year, AMR F1 are avoiding pointing at Honda's PU as a cause of problems.

The guy they brought over from Merc is basically the guy that designed the Merc gearbox cassette and internals the previous years.

This Merc fellow was never going to show up and whip out a great transmission all by himself: a from-scratch project like this requires a bunch of people with their own specialities to come together as a team, and that process takes time. Years. To expect AMR to produce a good or even average transmission integration on their first go is simply not realistic.

https://www.racecar-engineering.com/art ... hatgpt.com
Xtrac, the transmission technology specialist and long-established supplier of gearbox components to almost every Formula 1 team on the grid

[urtsee]

Thanks

[urtsee]

the fuel rules now don't fix fuel mass per race - so fuel with high mass-specific energy is now not rewarded
fuel energy per race now is fixed

Do you know how that is measured?

By potential energy?

Energy used?

Some calculation?

Straight question

https://www.fia.com/sites/default/files ... -12-06.pdf
When assessing compliance with the above two articles, the fuel mass flow rates measured
by the fuel flow meters will be converted in the SECU in fuel energy flow rates using the
energy density and the LHV of the fuel as measured by the FIA. The procedure which will be
used to determine these values may be found in the Appendix to the Technical and Sporting
Regulations.


The Appendix they're referring to is not a public document.

Thank you

[diffuser]

So f1unchained said that Ferrari are bringing a new ICE for Austria. Audi tested thier new ICE on track but are undecided about bringing it to Austria.

[kptaylor]

Honda waiting, but is that due to Honda alone or the need to check the PU with a new gearbox, structural mounting system in chassis, vibration with chassis, etc. It's never a single cause for failure or delay.

[zoroastar]

Honda waiting, but is that due to Honda alone or the need to check the PU with a new gearbox, structural mounting system in chassis, vibration with chassis, etc. It's never a single cause for failure or delay.

i think that theyve known that an update was going to take a while since early on. the honda folks and members in the team have been stressing that this isnt going to be an overnight fix since early in the season. if they can get any meaningful improvement to the PU by the upgrade in the summer ill be happy. never had much hope that they would start bringing updates as soon as the aduo cleared.

somebody (cowell probably) really screwed up by not keeping tabs on their progress. by neweys reaction during testing, he had no idea it was as bad as it was.

i imagine that "all the above" would cover your question. they need to do all that stuff, but not until after they have a solid design built.

[zoroastar]

While this isn't a Honda sympathizer forum, I am someone who sympathizes with Honda. And the forum's format doesn't change that. I don't think this is a place to mercilessly praise European manufacturers like they do in motogp after years of japan wining batching japan manufacturers when European starts to win. But with so many Europeans, this statement could turn into an attack.
It's absurd that I even have to say this, but the same engine is in a race-winning car, and in a car competing around Aston.
If Newey had chosen the safest route, and Honda had chosen the safest route, Stroll choosen safest route, they might be doing a little better today. But is that the point? A comment from someone who doesn't understand this simply means they don't understand anything about objective of AM.

Maybe a child or an immature person always wants to be on the winning side. But I much prefer watching a team rise from the bottom, step by step. Unfortunately, it's not always possible to get informations with all the technical developments, especially in MotoGP. But this forum helps me with that.
Back when Honda and Red Bull were already winning, I didn't even feel the need to look at the races or the forum for comments. There was nothing left that interested me. Now I'm looking again.

Even if midfield minded people left, they did well. Some of forum members really share good news sources and comments.

more than a lot of people in here realize also sympathize for honda. but they shouldnt be expected to offer apologies to guys that feel like honda has somehow been mistreated for underperforming either. like ive said a couple of times, theres plenty of blame to go around everywhere. theres no europe or japanese pride coming from where im standing. or american for that matter. in my opinion, thats where all the problems begin. if you lke starting from the bottom in f1, thats your prerogative. seems kinda masochistic to me. but regardless, most of us that have been following aston primarily forthe last few years, or following alonso, have never been on "the winning side". its hard to understand how wanting to win is immature. maybe all sports are immature then. that is sorta the point. while i understand what you mean about seeing the team being built up gives a greater sense of accomplishment, from my standpoint, weve been at the bottom since the second half of 2023. 5th isnt much better than 11th in my view.

Even while AM is not doing fine by a long shot, seems at least naive to think that Honda is getting its fair share of blame just for not being an european manufacturer.

As long as I remember, Ferrari and Renault are european and had received good amount of stick for design and organizative failures.

yeah ferrari have legendary fans. but if this happened to them, there would be no slack given. theyd be picketting the streets in italy. it would be the only thing the european press ever talked about until summer break, and most the team would be fired.

[SSJ4]

Wonder how much of the budget was spent on fixing the vibrations. Regarding the upgrades there is a lot of low hanging fruit for both Aston and Martin to improve on. But it’s all relative to the fields improvement. I would take 11/13 and borderline points scoring consistently

[etusch]

Honda has been a disaster this rule cycle. Where is the ADUO-upgraded engine?? AUDI tested theirs a couple of days ago, Ferrari is working on theirs. Honda is talking about after the summer break, which is embarrassing.
Aston themselves have not been great either, but this nonsense trying to blame it all on the Aramco fuel smells of some sort of Japanese nationalism. Accept the fact that Honda messed up royally, Aston did to, especially with the gearbox. But ispano wont see this because he blocked me for saying Honda was incompetent back i March, lol.

I think he's right to block you. You commented that Ferrari is "working on" something, and dates like the beginning of the second half of the season are being mentioned for Honda. This implies that Ferrari is "working", and "Honda is also working". There's no evidence that these two projects need to be completed simultaneously. You're only using that as an excuse to make this comment. you could try thinking before you write. For example, why did Newey, after seeing the situation (big probably they were expecting it before it happened), decide to take a step back and calmly work on general improvements instead of bringing in many updates? Actually, that solves everything, but there will still be those who don't want to think about it. Just as it's easier for Ferrari to update an already good car, it's also easier for them to update their engine. Honda undoubtedly has more things to solve which needs bigger change on the engine. And this also why they have more AUDO

[ispano6]

Honda Spec2 engine was brought to Miami with hardware AND software upgrades(which are limited by regulations and must be used wisely), Spec3 engine v6 needs to complete reliability tests but doesn't have to be brought with the car updates. The long lead times for some of the components and materials will not be accelerated or skipped foolishly like some ask for. Why bring a smaller update fast when you can have a bigger more meaningful one a few weeks later especially given the restricted number of upgrades you can bring on the software side.