2024 Aston Martin | Aramco F1 Team

[diffuser]

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.

Depends on what they're testing in that 1 cylinder. Much of the V6, they're using today, isn't gonna change. They're probably just testing the new fuel regs in that 1 Cylinder. It isn't the year 2013, when everything is new. They already have alot of data collected on the MGU-K. MGU-K will be re-positioned, put in before the ICE instead of where it sits today at the back.

[diffuser]

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.

What you omit in that description is that the token system was removed for the 2017 season. Honda took that opportunity to completely redesign the PU for that year. The block was redesigned, the crank, connecting rods, pistons, turbo was resized and split placing the compressor in the front of the ICE, MGU-H in the middle, turbine was left in the back, with a long spindle running front to back and obviously the heads. I'm sure that required a complete redesign of the intake as well.

Of Course, the then McLaren team thought that Honda could completely redesign and build a new PU and not have far more reliability problems than other team's PUs. Really 2017, for Honda, was their 2014.

If you go back and look, Merc started on the regs in 2011. They were ready for 2014. Honda only came to an agreement with McLaren in late 2012.

It's also why the FIA have kept the regs close to their chest this time and announce a CAP.

[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.

What you omit in that description is that the token system was removed for the 2017 season. Honda took that opportunity to completely redesign the PU for that year. The block was redesigned, the crank, connecting rods, pistons, turbo was resized and split placing the compressor in the front of the ICE, MGU-H in the middle, turbine was left in the back, with a long spindle running front to back and obviously the heads. I'm sure that required a complete redesign of the intake as well.

My intention wasn't to omit that. When the previous poster mentioned the "perfect" cylinder, that was the first thing I remembered about the 2017 unit. It was a complete redesign like you said, so reliability shouldn't and couldn't have been expected.

[Jambier]

As said before, the ICE will not change that much for 2026, I don’t see many risks there

[ispano6]

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.

Lots to disagree with on this. Starting with the founders quirks. It's not about overcomplicating things. It's about learning from failure. It's about doing things in novel ways. Some have more patience than others, or longer time scales. The moto gp comparison is also off since Honda is responsible for the bike too. Which btw has had a good turn in form this past weekend with aero upgrades. The motorcycle division is credited with developing the cylinder plating. It's all done under One Honda mentality. It's only now that HRC has branched off from Honda Corporate that they are "safe" from dissolvement by shareholders or bean counters. And they have HPD support now too. They are hiring as well, so things are moving at HRC.

[Rikrikrik]

Interesting to read. Something about their front suspension and mechanic. Só this car has a "wrong design" into the front and they never will fix that until change all concept. We'll need wait for AMR25

https://soymotor.com/f1/articulos/aston ... marina-bay

[diffuser]

Interesting to read. Something about their front suspension and mechanic. Só this car has a "wrong design" into the front and they never will fix that until change all concept. We'll need wait for AMR25

https://soymotor.com/f1/articulos/aston ... marina-bay

Think that's the understeer, not sure it has anything to do with braking. No doudt, it's either difficult to rotate, can't carry enough speed, etc.

[-wkst-]

I don't know, just saying the car understeers heavily in slow speed corners and therefore the front suspension must be --- is a bit too easy, isn't it?! Maybe pull rod at the front would be ideal, as the winning cars show (RBR and McLaren), but also RBR ran into troubles and like all cars that's mostly floor/balance related.

Bear in mind that AMR used basically the same suspension design last year and slow speed corners were the strong point of the car. Even after the famous FW ban, Brazil showed how good this car was in slow speed sections.

[OnEcRiTiCaL]

I don't know, just saying the car understeers heavily in slow speed corners and therefore the front suspension must be --- is a bit too easy, isn't it?! Maybe pull rod at the front would be ideal, as the winning cars show (RBR and McLaren), but also RBR ran into troubles and like all cars that's mostly floor/balance related.

Bear in mind that AMR used basically the same suspension design last year and slow speed corners were the strong point of the car. Even after the famous FW ban, Brazil showed how good this car was in slow speed sections.

Is wind tunnel related since last year Mercedes and Aston had the same problems with correlation. This year at Bahrain test Totto said they found the problem and seems like they did ,just forgot to tell to Aston. I heard stories that Mercedes almost never changed the floor in the windtunnel,so when they made a lot of run the floor structure changed is causes 1-2% false data which is huge in the windtunnel and f1. Of course Aston used the same floor. Since this season they change it more often and they also changed to simulate the different track surfaces.

[-wkst-]

Wolff is talking a lot and looking at the recent results of Mercedes and how the drivers talk, I don't buy it for a second that they are on top of their problems - whatever they are.

[bananapeel23]

I don't know, just saying the car understeers heavily in slow speed corners and therefore the front suspension must be --- is a bit too easy, isn't it?! Maybe pull rod at the front would be ideal, as the winning cars show (RBR and McLaren), but also RBR ran into troubles and like all cars that's mostly floor/balance related.

Bear in mind that AMR used basically the same suspension design last year and slow speed corners were the strong point of the car. Even after the famous FW ban, Brazil showed how good this car was in slow speed sections.

Is wind tunnel related since last year Mercedes and Aston had the same problems with correlation. This year at Bahrain test Totto said they found the problem and seems like they did ,just forgot to tell to Aston. I heard stories that Mercedes almost never changed the floor in the windtunnel,so when they made a lot of run the floor structure changed is causes 1-2% false data which is huge in the windtunnel and f1. Of course Aston used the same floor. Since this season they change it more often and they also changed to simulate the different track surfaces.

I highly doubt the problem is to do with the wind tunnel itself. Aston and Mercedes aren't even facing the same struggles with their respective cars. Mercedes always had bouncing that forced them to raise the floor, but not much else, while Aston always ended up with an unpredictable, underperforming car.

The wind tunnel might be partially to blame, but it's very obvious that this regulation set is just really difficult. I think the only teams we can conclusively say have figured it out enough to get pretty reliable upgrades are McLaren and maybe Ferrari (post-monza).

Ferrari does admittedly say that they did have problems with the wind tunnel and that they had to upgrade the wind tunnel to resolve them, but I don't really think that is the case for Mercedes and Aston. I guess we will see if Aston Martin manages to magically solve their issues when the new wind tunnel comes online.

[diffuser]

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.

What you omit in that description is that the token system was removed for the 2017 season. Honda took that opportunity to completely redesign the PU for that year. The block was redesigned, the crank, connecting rods, pistons, turbo was resized and split placing the compressor in the front of the ICE, MGU-H in the middle, turbine was left in the back, with a long spindle running front to back and obviously the heads. I'm sure that required a complete redesign of the intake as well.

My intention wasn't to omit that. When the previous poster mentioned the "perfect" cylinder, that was the first thing I remembered about the 2017 unit. It was a complete redesign like you said, so reliability shouldn't and couldn't have been expected.

All is forgiven

[diffuser]

I don't know, just saying the car understeers heavily in slow speed corners and therefore the front suspension must be --- is a bit too easy, isn't it?! Maybe pull rod at the front would be ideal, as the winning cars show (RBR and McLaren), but also RBR ran into troubles and like all cars that's mostly floor/balance related.

Bear in mind that AMR used basically the same suspension design last year and slow speed corners were the strong point of the car. Even after the famous FW ban, Brazil showed how good this car was in slow speed sections.

Is wind tunnel related since last year Mercedes and Aston had the same problems with correlation. This year at Bahrain test Totto said they found the problem and seems like they did ,just forgot to tell to Aston. I heard stories that Mercedes almost never changed the floor in the windtunnel,so when they made a lot of run the floor structure changed is causes 1-2% false data which is huge in the windtunnel and f1. Of course Aston used the same floor. Since this season they change it more often and they also changed to simulate the different track surfaces.

I highly doubt the problem is to do with the wind tunnel itself. Aston and Mercedes aren't even facing the same struggles with their respective cars. Mercedes always had bouncing that forced them to raise the floor, but not much else, while Aston always ended up with an unpredictable, underperforming car.

The wind tunnel might partially to blame, but it's very obvious that this regulation set is just really difficult. I think the only teams we can conclusively say have figured it out enough to get pretty reliable upgrades are McLaren and maybe Ferrari (post-monza).

Ferrari does admittedly say that they did have problems with the wind tunnel and that they had to upgrade the wind tunnel to resolve them, but I don't really think that is the case for Mercedes and Aston. I guess we will see if Aston Martin manages to magically solve their issues when the new wind tunnel comes online.

I agree, the wind tunnel is just a tool. I can always blame the pencil for my drawings being ugly and unrepresentative of the object I'm drawing but is it the pencil fault? or is it the fault of the person using the pencil?

I also agree that the regs are very difficult. The underfloor has 2 very different aspects of aero to sections of the car you can see when it's riding along the circuit.
1 - is that you can easily move that dirty air away from the car, when it's above the car.
2 - The space above car has no effect on the DF generated. While the space below the floor changes with every bump, speed of the car, amount of DF the car creates. It's almost like you need something to counter all those changes and keep the car at the same height without making the suspension stiffer(That will cause traction to suffer in slow corners).

[vas_04614]

interesting video and if true, wonder if Aston are allowed to do these kind of varied tests if you don't own the wind-tunnel to find co-relation problems

[peewon]

As said before, the ICE will not change that much for 2026, I don’t see many risks there

Well its not necessary they change but they could. The min. weight is lower so teams would want a more efficient and lighter PU. A more powerful ICE can significantly reduce the limitations expected with significantly higher percentage of battery power.