2024 Aston Martin | Aramco F1 Team

[ispano6]

if Honda delivering bad engine I think Adrian cannot do much.... Alonso and Honda combination never works....

At Alpine, Alonso had the worst engine and Alpine still has a PU with a performance deficit. So as long as Honda does not have a significant deficit they will be able to produce a car that can fight for wins.

and BTW Horner said, “The driver (Hamilton) that’s created all the movement in the market had all the information about the engines and 2026 regulations and so on and chose to leave and left a vacancy at Mercedes"

We know as well by Toto that Alonso as well turned down Mercedes. So even if we still do not know nothing about the engines, seems that inside the paddock they know something.

It's also on Valvoline to work with Honda to develop toward the optimal 100% CNF formula. With different fuel and lubricants suppliers in the mix, it is as much a biochemical race as it is a mechanical one.

[Jambier]

For the 2026 engine I don't see why Honda can't have the best / or equal best engine.
Even the Renault (if he exists one day) might be no so bad.

The only ones I have no confidence in are the RBPT Ford and the Audi.

[TyreSlip]

From time to time, I read from posters what the simulator predicts Aston Martin should finish at a specific track. Where do you all get your sources for this?

[Otromundo]

I don't see any problem between ALO and Honda. In any case, they have a great opportunity to settle accounts with the past. I think it was a disappointment for both of them to embark on the size zero concept, so wonderful on Ron Dennis's drawing board and so disastrous in reality.

That was an unexpected disaster. Or maybe not so much because Honda had been out of F1 for years and perhaps did not calculate its strength well. I suspect that they were not up to date with the evolution of fuels, oils and perhaps also materials. That took them off guard and by surprise and they had to do a kind of very looooong humility cure. Meanwhile, ALO was desperate that he had made a mistake by going back to McL.

In any case, Honda also has its peculiarities. Some are inherited from its founder, Soichiro, who always asked engineers about his new engines: What do these engines have that other brands don't? Therefore, they have generally had a tendency to complicate something that is already complicated. Something very similar is happening right now in MotoGP.

They are also not the fastest in the world in updating/redesigning. And they also have a tendency - at least on motorcycles - to ignore the opinions of their riders.

But they know how to make engines, there is no doubt about that. And after the ordeal with McL they returned to the sweetness of victory with RB. They're supposed to be fully updated now and they're also supposed to not let ALO down again by overcomplicating the engine. This way the ninja on ALO's back will be happy, finally.

[KimiRai]

From time to time, I read from posters what the simulator predicts Aston Martin should finish at a specific track. Where do you all get your sources for this?

Alonso usually says it before or after the GP

[-wkst-]

From time to time, I read from posters what the simulator predicts Aston Martin should finish at a specific track. Where do you all get your sources for this?

Alonso usually says it before or after the GP

To be fair, he is very vocal about this infos when he surprasses the predictions by quite a lot. He is also a good salesman.

[peewon]

I don't see any problem between ALO and Honda. In any case, they have a great opportunity to settle accounts with the past. I think it was a disappointment for both of them to embark on the size zero concept, so wonderful on Ron Dennis's drawing board and so disastrous in reality.

That was an unexpected disaster. Or maybe not so much because Honda had been out of F1 for years and perhaps did not calculate its strength well. I suspect that they were not up to date with the evolution of fuels, oils and perhaps also materials. That took them off guard and by surprise and they had to do a kind of very looooong humility cure. Meanwhile, ALO was desperate that he had made a mistake by going back to McL.

In any case, Honda also has its peculiarities. Some are inherited from its founder, Soichiro, who always asked engineers about his new engines: What do these engines have that other brands don't? Therefore, they have generally had a tendency to complicate something that is already complicated. Something very similar is happening right now in MotoGP.

They are also not the fastest in the world in updating/redesigning. And they also have a tendency - at least on motorcycles - to ignore the opinions of their riders.

But they know how to make engines, there is no doubt about that. And after the ordeal with McL they returned to the sweetness of victory with RB. They're supposed to be fully updated now and they're also supposed to not let ALO down again by overcomplicating the engine. This way the ninja on ALO's back will be happy, finally.

I think Honda lost a lot of people to RBPT when they withdrew from F1 but since they did a quick u-turn, hard to say how much it effected them. By all accounts, they seem to be behind in the development race by a few months.

Ferrari and RBPT had reportedly started testing their complete power units by the end of 2023. The only specific update from Honda was that by the end of April 2024 they were testing the 1 cylinder version of their ICE.

https://www.motorsport.com/f1/news/hond ... /10605009/

I really dont know what that means in terms of progress. Mercedes have been openly bullish about their PU performance from Wolff to George Russell.

[diffuser]

I don't see any problem between ALO and Honda. In any case, they have a great opportunity to settle accounts with the past. I think it was a disappointment for both of them to embark on the size zero concept, so wonderful on Ron Dennis's drawing board and so disastrous in reality.

That was an unexpected disaster. Or maybe not so much because Honda had been out of F1 for years and perhaps did not calculate its strength well. I suspect that they were not up to date with the evolution of fuels, oils and perhaps also materials. That took them off guard and by surprise and they had to do a kind of very looooong humility cure. Meanwhile, ALO was desperate that he had made a mistake by going back to McL.

In any case, Honda also has its peculiarities. Some are inherited from its founder, Soichiro, who always asked engineers about his new engines: What do these engines have that other brands don't? Therefore, they have generally had a tendency to complicate something that is already complicated. Something very similar is happening right now in MotoGP.

They are also not the fastest in the world in updating/redesigning. And they also have a tendency - at least on motorcycles - to ignore the opinions of their riders.

But they know how to make engines, there is no doubt about that. And after the ordeal with McL they returned to the sweetness of victory with RB. They're supposed to be fully updated now and they're also supposed to not let ALO down again by overcomplicating the engine. This way the ninja on ALO's back will be happy, finally.

I think Honda lost a lot of people to RBPT when they withdrew from F1 but since they did a quick u-turn, hard to say how much it effected them. By all accounts, they seem to be behind in the development race by a few months.

Ferrari and RBPT had reportedly started testing their complete power units by the end of 2023. The only specific update from Honda was that by the end of April 2024 they were testing the 1 cylinder version of their ICE.

https://www.motorsport.com/f1/news/hond ... /10605009/

I really dont know what that means in terms of progress. Mercedes have been openly bullish about their PU performance from Wolff to George Russell.

You think they moved from Japan to the UK ?
The people they had in the UK were the equivalent of the race team. The real designers were in Japan. All design and manufacturing is done in Japan for the Honda PU. Those employees went to other projects at Honda. Doubt any of them left Honda.

I doubt they all came back but I'm sure they brought enough back that they could back fill with fresh blood. It's not like the previous project ended in disaster, like if it would have ended in 2018 or 2019. They did win several championships.

[KimiRai]

If we go by rumours apparently (according to Nugnes at least) Aramco was the most advanced in efuels. Very early to know anyways. Most importantly in 3 weeks whatever they bring to Austin needs to bring performance. If that's the case, it would be the first successful upgrade package in almost 2 years...

[Rikrikrik]

If we go by rumours apparently (according to Nugnes at least) Aramco was the most advanced in efuels. Very early to know anyways. Most importantly in 3 weeks whatever they bring to Austin needs to bring performance. If that's the case, it would be the first successful upgrade package in almost 2 years...

Thats the point, if this package dont work immediatelly and they'll say " we need learn moree abou........" everyone knows what will that means if they really understood what the path they need to go, these upgrades needs improve that car.

Maybe a B spec car? or a little changes?

[bananapeel23]

If we go by rumours apparently (according to Nugnes at least) Aramco was the most advanced in efuels. Very early to know anyways. Most importantly in 3 weeks whatever they bring to Austin needs to bring performance. If that's the case, it would be the first successful upgrade package in almost 2 years...

I was under the impression that the fuel regulations were so limited that there more or less weren’t any significant perfmormance gains available from the fuel, since power density and octane numbers are super limited. Obviously there are some gains to be made elsewhere, but my understanding is that we’re talking about a few horsepower at most between the best and worst fuels and that the fuel might impact reliabilty.

[Otromundo]

I don't see any problem between ALO and Honda. In any case, they have a great opportunity to settle accounts with the past ... ... blablabla ...they're also supposed to not let ALO down again by overcomplicating the engine. This way the ninja on ALO's back will be happy, finally.

I think Honda lost a lot of people to RBPT when they withdrew from F1 but since they did a quick u-turn, hard to say how much it effected them. By all accounts, they seem to be behind in the development race by a few months.

Ferrari and RBPT had reportedly started testing their complete power units by the end of 2023. The only specific update from Honda was that by the end of April 2024 they were testing the 1 cylinder version of their ICE.

https://www.motorsport.com/f1/news/hond ... /10605009/

I really dont know what that means in terms of progress. Mercedes have been openly bullish about their PU performance from Wolff to George Russell.

You think they moved from Japan to the UK ?
The people they had in the UK were the equivalent of the race team. The real designers were in Japan. All design and manufacturing is done in Japan for the Honda PU. Those employees went to other projects at Honda. Doubt any of them left Honda.

I doubt they all came back but I'm sure they brought enough back that they could back fill with fresh blood. It's not like the previous project ended in disaster, like if it would have ended in 2018 or 2019. They did win several championships.

After reading the motorsport.com link... I'm already more worried.

That Honda shows an apparently "perfect" cylinder but then the engine breaks down sounds familiar to me. I don't remember if it was with the "size-zero" McL or with the motorcycles... Then came the crying and gnashing of teeth... for not having tested the complete engine!! But I don't remember the cause.

Then it turns out that they will start with the electrical part... despite knowing it, I had forgotten "the electrical part" of these cars. Honda with its "prototype" cylinder at the beginning will focus its efforts on the electrical part. Mmmm...

And the paella of societies, places, names and countries that are cooking to see where things will happen... I don't know what to think and the link is from April 30. Maybe things have changed.

I would be very surprised if Honda moved something really important to GB, leaving out Hamamatsu. It's another Honda tradition. Although it has caused them a lot of problems, I think. And even more to the teams involved, of course.

Wow, I made a radical anti-Honda speech. Sorry, but I was worried about the Motorsport link. And besides... I've always preferred Kawasakis.

[KimiRai]

Krack

‘We are all very ambitious, we want to be at the top, and we were last year. But this year we have taken a step backwards, which is weighing us down. We are going to bring improvements that will arrive soon’

‘There are improvements coming soon, so we can tell people that soon I hope they will work. We've spent a long time trying to understand, because sometimes you see in the pit lane that people bring in new parts, and they work better in one area, worse in another, and we've suffered from the start’

‘Now we have a long break to allow us to finish everything and bring updates for the next races.... We're working on it, but let's be honest, the season hasn't gone the way we wanted it to, and the way we should have. The upgrades we brought to the car were not good enough, they didn't bring us the performance we wanted’

https://www.marca.com/motor/formula1/20 ... b4586.html

[-wkst-]

Interesting comment from Rob Marshall about updates:

McLaren chief designer Rob Marshall says that the team’s plan was to make sure that any upgrade it did bring helped produce a big step.

“It's about chasing downforce all the time,” he said. “We kind of like to gather the chunks up and deliver it in a big hit. So far we've just been focusing on basically gathering those bits up. At some point hopefully we'll have another upgrade to deliver.

“In a way it's nice to be delivering lots of little upgrades all the time, a bit like our beam wing here this weekend.

“But equally sometimes you just have to hold on a little bit while you wait for a chunk of bits to come all at the same time.

“The advantage in doing that is that often bits don't combine very well, or as well as you think they would. And if you deliver them in one lump, then that sort of combination of parts has been in CFD together, it was developed together, it's been through the wind tunnel together, so you can be more confident that combination of bits works well together.

“Whereas if you do it bit by bit, you might introduce an upgrade on one part and then work on another part and find out actually it's a bit compromised by the previous change you made.”

motorsport.com

I think also a bit of the problem at AMR is that Marshalls counterpart at AMR Furbatto (and many engineers) have to work the last years also for other projects (windtunnel commissioning, getting the simulator ready, etc.). Furbatto once said that nearly 200 people are/were working on the new facilities/tools, which are available for racing projects in 2026...

[TyreSlip]

That Honda shows an apparently "perfect" cylinder but then the engine breaks down sounds familiar to me. I don't remember if it was with the "size-zero" McL or with the motorcycles... Then came the crying and gnashing of teeth... for not having tested the complete engine!! But I don't remember the cause.

In 2017, Honda fell further behind the competition because its pre-injection chamber technology did not work as anticipated (too many vibrations). They perfected it with the monocylinder design and assumed it would scale to the 6 cylinder F1 motor, and it didn't without problems. IIRC, Honda did not tell McLaren about this setback until pre-season testing, and McLaren could barely do any kilometers of testing. The entire season was compromised leading to the McLaren/Honda divorce.