2026 Aston Martin Aramco Formula One Team

[etusch]

AMR is lacking true leadership. Lawrence Stroll is not and cannot be the person to point this team in the right direction. Newey is a technical fellow and Mike Krack is a management head. Currently there is no one that has the ability to galvanize the team’s morale and inspire them to maximize effort. Until then I don’t see much changing for them this season.

I agree about Stroll. Yes, he's ambitious, but I don't know his abilities about managing the Formula 1 team if he were interfere to team managment too much. (That's the extent of my agreement ) But we can't make such a quick decision about Newey. The person I admire most in this regard, and whom I believe brought Red Bull to its current state, is Horner, and he didn't achieve this in a year or the following year. It's far too early to make a decision on Newey.

[Jambier]

AMR is lacking true leadership. Lawrence Stroll is not and cannot be the person to point this team in the right direction. Newey is a technical fellow and Mike Krack is a management head. Currently there is no one that has the ability to galvanize the team’s morale and inspire them to maximize effort. Until then I don’t see much changing for them this season.

I agree about Stroll. Yes, he's ambitious, but I don't know his abilities about managing the Formula 1 team if he were interfere to team managment too much. (That's the extent of my agreement ) But we can't make such a quick decision about Newey. The person I admire most in this regard, and whom I believe brought Red Bull to its current state, is Horner, and he didn't achieve this in a year or the following year. It's far too early to make a decision on Newey.

Agreed, I think, a realistic target for this team is 2029-2030.
(Then again we change engines)

Nothing is working, so they need a few season and Honda as well, and then it can become a top team (no guarantees)

I think this reality will be too difficult for ALO, and I'm not even sure about STR, he might just go have fun in another category.

[Rikrikrik]

AMR is lacking true leadership. Lawrence Stroll is not and cannot be the person to point this team in the right direction. Newey is a technical fellow and Mike Krack is a management head. Currently there is no one that has the ability to galvanize the team’s morale and inspire them to maximize effort. Until then I don’t see much changing for them this season.

I agree about Stroll. Yes, he's ambitious, but I don't know his abilities about managing the Formula 1 team if he were interfere to team managment too much. (That's the extent of my agreement ) But we can't make such a quick decision about Newey. The person I admire most in this regard, and whom I believe brought Red Bull to its current state, is Horner, and he didn't achieve this in a year or the following year. It's far too early to make a decision on Newey.

Agreed, I think, a realistic target for this team is 2029-2030.
(Then again we change engines)

Nothing is working, so they need a few season and Honda as well, and then it can become a top team (no guarantees)

I think this reality will be too difficult for ALO, and I'm not even sure about STR, he might just go have fun in another category.

If Alonso wants to see good results from all this, she'll need to stay at least until the end of 2028; otherwise, it will happen again: she entered a project, it was a disaster, and when she left, things went well. That's why I emphasize, for Alonso, staying just one more year doesn't make sense; they need two. Otherwise, it's better for him to go take care of his son.

[SSJ4]

Aston Martin have definitely not given up on this season.
They are falling back because they have so far brought almost no performance upgrades to their car, while all the other teams have.
That's because they have decided the best use of their resources in the context of the cost cap is to introduce one major upgrade in one go, rather than drip-feed smaller ones over a series of races.
That upgrade is expected around the time of the Belgian Grand Prix - in three races' time.
A revised and improved Honda engine has also been promised. Honda won't say when it's due to arrive, but sources in the team have told BBC Sport it is likely to be after the summer break, around the time of the Dutch Grand Prix.
Aston Martin's problem is that even if that aerodynamic upgrade makes the car two seconds a lap faster - and if it did, it would be one hell of an upgrade - it will only move them up to Racing Bulls/Audi territory.

From BBC sport

[NAPI10]

Aston Martin have definitely not given up on this season.
They are falling back because they have so far brought almost no performance upgrades to their car, while all the other teams have.
That's because they have decided the best use of their resources in the context of the cost cap is to introduce one major upgrade in one go, rather than drip-feed smaller ones over a series of races.
That upgrade is expected around the time of the Belgian Grand Prix - in three races' time.
A revised and improved Honda engine has also been promised. Honda won't say when it's due to arrive, but sources in the team have told BBC Sport it is likely to be after the summer break, around the time of the Dutch Grand Prix.
Aston Martin's problem is that even if that aerodynamic upgrade makes the car two seconds a lap faster - and if it did, it would be one hell of an upgrade - it will only move them up to Racing Bulls/Audi territory.

From BBC sport

It seems, upgrades are coming after summer break
https://www.gpblog.com/en/news/aston-ma ... on-the-way

[diffuser]

AMR is lacking true leadership. Lawrence Stroll is not and cannot be the person to point this team in the right direction. Newey is a technical fellow and Mike Krack is a management head. Currently there is no one that has the ability to galvanize the team’s morale and inspire them to maximize effort. Until then I don’t see much changing for them this season.

How do you know that ?
What about Enrico Cardile????

[hkbruin]

If the tea leaves are correct, then the logical person to take the helm would be Jonathan Wheatley. Unfortunately his gardening leave will probably be strictly enforced and he won’t be able to join the AMR team until Jan 1, 2027. By then I hope the technical side of things would be ironed out and the Honda PU will have taken an evolutionary step. A year from now I would be elated if we were arguing about whether if JW is to be credited with the team’s turnaround or if it’s because of the underlying AMR27 car. One can only hope..

[diffuser]

AMR is lacking true leadership. Lawrence Stroll is not and cannot be the person to point this team in the right direction. Newey is a technical fellow and Mike Krack is a management head. Currently there is no one that has the ability to galvanize the team’s morale and inspire them to maximize effort. Until then I don’t see much changing for them this season.

I agree about Stroll. Yes, he's ambitious, but I don't know his abilities about managing the Formula 1 team if he were interfere to team managment too much. (That's the extent of my agreement ) But we can't make such a quick decision about Newey. The person I admire most in this regard, and whom I believe brought Red Bull to its current state, is Horner, and he didn't achieve this in a year or the following year. It's far too early to make a decision on Newey.

I think that's why he got Newey, someone that know's the ins and outs of F1 with alot of experience. So he can focus on the financial aspects. Remember this team only finished coming together in July of 2025(Enrico Cardile). So the current team hasn't been together long.

[TyreSlip]

Why is it we hear nothing about Enrico Cardile?

[diffuser]

Why is it we hear nothing about Enrico Cardile?

What do you expect to hear? He's not a "customer facing" guy. He works in the factory and runs it.

[TyreSlip]

Why is it we hear nothing about Enrico Cardile?

What do you expect to hear? He's not a "customer facing" guy. He works in the factory and runs it.

Just about every high ranking official gets a PR piece done by Aston Martin. There are no interviews or Q&As about his settling in with the team and what his short/long-terms goals are.

[mzso]

Too many problems to be magically solved all at once with the B-spec car.

Not necessarily. Technically the Mercedces car for the first race was as good as it was on the first try. With the biggest defects fixed and the engine power closer to the rest much can happen...
Or they can mess up everything again and stay last.

They postponed the b spec to late in august or september, Alonso said "more 5 races", De la Rosa said " nothing in this car until after summer break"

honestly, the situation is more dramatic and terrible than aany people expected, i think, even the spec-b for car and engine i think they'll just improve for fight with Cadillac and nothing more. They are so much late.

They probably need to wait for the new Honda PU. If it's true that they need to re-design the whole mounting system it's no surprise, might be incompatible with the launch chassis. Which would mean either both new PU and chassis or nothing.

[mzso]

Alonso said yesterday its hopes of being ready by Spa rested on the upgraded engine from Honda. Because the package is now being delayed until after the summer break, Honda must not be ready.

I wonder if the mandatory shutdown apply to engine manufacturers as well? If yes, can they enforce it in Japan?

[mzso]

"So current situation, we are waiting still FIA decision. But once we got the decision, we have the idea what we need to improve and we have the list what we need to do. But we are waiting FIA decision."

It's not an issue about being "ready" by the summer break per se, it's an issue about when they know they can start the actual ADUO development. Apparently, this hasn't commenced yet.

Nonsense. They are surely developing ever since they submitted this engine. Nothing stops them from developing.
Not to mention the fact that they can't just come up with a meaningful upgrade in less than two months.
Because of the crippling vibrations they probably wouldn't have even needed to rely on ADUO to deliver an upgrade.

[mzso]

• You see the 110 points difference between Merc and McLaren? It's all because Merc is the "de facto works team". So that is the reason why you'd want to set up a works partnership.

• If you asking why Honda? well they were the only one on the outside looking in for a team.

• It is nolonger true that AMR F1 have no idea of what is going on at Honda. They have a team lead by Andy Cowell working out of Honda R&D in Japan. This was probably the biggest mistake made by AMR F1, not having anybody at Honda R&D till it was too late. Presume that Andy Cowell preferred to play team principle than make sure their future PU would be ready

• Either the Koji Watanabe (President Honda/HRC) or Shintaro Orihara (Honda's Trackside General Manager and Chief Engineer) said in March that they brought over some of their most experienced guys from MotoGP to help bolster the ICE team.

• I think they both share blame in that Honda should be more responsible and AMR F1 cause of poor management. Is it possible that that to struggle is not seen as bad in Japanese culture if in the end you come out on top?

I think it's entirely reasonable to expect that an established F1 PU manufacturer, on that supplies one of the best PUs should deliver a competitive PU without the team micro-managing it. Especially when the team is already working at full capacity to deliver the new car in a reduced time-frame.