You're not allowed to put the 2026 car into the WT until after Jan 1 2025. Plus they're still finalizing the aero regs. What are they working on? Plus what is manufacturing working on?Nikosar wrote: ↑21 Oct 2024, 21:21According to James Vowles, their aerodynamics workforce is about 50 people. Only 5 people are working on the 2024 and 2025 cars. Most and all resources are employed for 2026.
Now, seeing how the season has unfolded since the second part of 2023 for Aston and IMHO, Aston is now focusing on 2026 even though it has more resources. And this is the most rational approach. There is no need to focus on 2025 unless they pull off a miracle in the winter.
I understand the frustration now, and it is even more frustrating to see Williams or even Haass not even having a simulator and paying to use an F2 simulator.
Aston had a more than reasonable amount of time to produce a working upgrade. They admit to be lost and had to start again with a new approach. It is all corporate talk, they turned the page for 26.
Unlucky for us, this is the frustrating present, a compromised present but for a better 2026.
In that video interview with Krack posted in the last couple days. Krack says they split the week with Merc, Merc getting 4 days and AMR getting 3. When they have the WT, they have for around the clock.Waz wrote: ↑22 Oct 2024, 09:07When Red Bull were penalised for the budget cap breach, someone showed a list of what that meant in real time compared to others, ie, how many hours per week for laymen to understand, and they still had nearly 40 hours access they could use every week for 10 months.
So the team with the least wind tunnel time could still operate in it for 8 hours a day, Monday to Friday if they wanted.
Translate that to Mercedes, who have more hours available, and the issue with upgrades in season becomes clearer. Mercedes are definitely not giving up any of their own time just so Aston Martin can use the tunnel.
I wouldn't be shocked if AM haven't used near their full allocation.
IIRC, Aston Martin gets Fri-Sunday. So it's already non-optimal from an employee point of view.diffuser wrote: ↑22 Oct 2024, 14:15In that video interview with Krack posted in the last couple days. Krack says they split the week with Merc, Merc getting 4 days and AMR getting 3. When they have the WT, they have for around the clock.Waz wrote: ↑22 Oct 2024, 09:07When Red Bull were penalised for the budget cap breach, someone showed a list of what that meant in real time compared to others, ie, how many hours per week for laymen to understand, and they still had nearly 40 hours access they could use every week for 10 months.
So the team with the least wind tunnel time could still operate in it for 8 hours a day, Monday to Friday if they wanted.
Translate that to Mercedes, who have more hours available, and the issue with upgrades in season becomes clearer. Mercedes are definitely not giving up any of their own time just so Aston Martin can use the tunnel.
I wouldn't be shocked if AM haven't used near their full allocation.
Just to be clear those 3 full days don't all count towards WT time. Much of that is consumed to setup the tests.
Just the wind-on time counts for ATR allocation.diffuser wrote: ↑22 Oct 2024, 14:15In that video interview with Krack posted in the last couple days. Krack says they split the week with Merc, Merc getting 4 days and AMR getting 3. When they have the WT, they have for around the clock.Waz wrote: ↑22 Oct 2024, 09:07When Red Bull were penalised for the budget cap breach, someone showed a list of what that meant in real time compared to others, ie, how many hours per week for laymen to understand, and they still had nearly 40 hours access they could use every week for 10 months.
So the team with the least wind tunnel time could still operate in it for 8 hours a day, Monday to Friday if they wanted.
Translate that to Mercedes, who have more hours available, and the issue with upgrades in season becomes clearer. Mercedes are definitely not giving up any of their own time just so Aston Martin can use the tunnel.
I wouldn't be shocked if AM haven't used near their full allocation.
Just to be clear those 3 full days don't all count towards WT time. Much of that is consumed to setup the tests.
Whilst Newey is a game changer, I don't think they should completely rely on him to turn the ship around.
I think, James Vowles knows that they can't test in the WT until January 1, 25. But they're not going to wait until January 1 25 to start thinking and working on component shapes, the floor, the spars, the rear, the front wing, etc... they're already working on ideas and then on January 1 they'll start testing. So the ban exist indeed and it its for testing but they can all still start working on how they can meet all the challenges.diffuser wrote: ↑22 Oct 2024, 13:49You're not allowed to put the 2026 car into the WT until after Jan 1 2025. Plus they're still finalizing the aero regs. What are they working on? Plus what is manufacturing working on?Nikosar wrote: ↑21 Oct 2024, 21:21According to James Vowles, their aerodynamics workforce is about 50 people. Only 5 people are working on the 2024 and 2025 cars. Most and all resources are employed for 2026.
Now, seeing how the season has unfolded since the second part of 2023 for Aston and IMHO, Aston is now focusing on 2026 even though it has more resources. And this is the most rational approach. There is no need to focus on 2025 unless they pull off a miracle in the winter.
I understand the frustration now, and it is even more frustrating to see Williams or even Haass not even having a simulator and paying to use an F2 simulator.
Aston had a more than reasonable amount of time to produce a working upgrade. They admit to be lost and had to start again with a new approach. It is all corporate talk, they turned the page for 26.
Unlucky for us, this is the frustrating present, a compromised present but for a better 2026.
Nikosar wrote: ↑23 Oct 2024, 11:28I think, James Vowles knows that they can't test in the WT until January 1, 25. But they're not going to wait until January 1 25 to start thinking and working on component shapes, the floor, the spars, the rear, the front wing, etc... they're already working on ideas and then on January 1 they'll start testing. So the ban exist indeed and it its for testing but they can all still start working on how they can meet all the challenges.diffuser wrote: ↑22 Oct 2024, 13:49You're not allowed to put the 2026 car into the WT until after Jan 1 2025. Plus they're still finalizing the aero regs. What are they working on? Plus what is manufacturing working on?Nikosar wrote: ↑21 Oct 2024, 21:21According to James Vowles, their aerodynamics workforce is about 50 people. Only 5 people are working on the 2024 and 2025 cars. Most and all resources are employed for 2026.
Now, seeing how the season has unfolded since the second part of 2023 for Aston and IMHO, Aston is now focusing on 2026 even though it has more resources. And this is the most rational approach. There is no need to focus on 2025 unless they pull off a miracle in the winter.
I understand the frustration now, and it is even more frustrating to see Williams or even Haass not even having a simulator and paying to use an F2 simulator.
Aston had a more than reasonable amount of time to produce a working upgrade. They admit to be lost and had to start again with a new approach. It is all corporate talk, they turned the page for 26.
Unlucky for us, this is the frustrating present, a compromised present but for a better 2026.
I do think for ex. that Honda is already working with Aston and therefore Aston is already allocating resources and human resources for that.
Good interview thanks.
If Aston Martin is the worst team next year, at least Newey can take full advantage of the extra wind tunnel time in the 2nd half of the season. I am mostly filled with hopium for 2026.Big Gun wrote: ↑23 Oct 2024, 16:20Good interview thanks.
Looks like 2025 will be a painful year according to Alonso, Newey is %100 only working on the 2026 car.
Alonso said the top 4 teams are to far ahead for next year.
Interesting what he said about Monaco 2023, that he didnt want any updates until after Monaco because originally the cars strength was slow speed corners but upgrades canceled it, so he wanted no upgrades, he said that was the weekend of is career where he did the most study and focus of his career, but despite almost getting pole the car wasnt great.