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KimiRai wrote:https://www.racefans.net/2023/08/16/tea ... its-krack/
Teams will need “drastic steps” on chassis to suit 2026 power units – Krack
Aston Martin team principal Mike Krack says he shares Red Bull counterpart Christian Horner’s concerns over Formula 1’s 2026 power unit regulations.
Red Bull’s Horner has repeatedly expressed worries this year about the power unit regulations set to be introduced in 2026. Although 1.6-litre V6 engines will be retained, the power unit designs will see heavily revised as F1 plans to drop the MGU-H element and greatly increases electrical power as a proportion of overall output.
Horner suggested that the rules risk creating “Frankenstein” cars and could lead to undesirable driving situations where drivers would have to shift down on long straights to maximise power unit performance. Reigning world champion Max Verstappen has also said the current regulations would produce “terrible” cars based on Red Bull’s early simulator analysis.
In an exclusive conversation with RaceFans, Krack was asked whether the 2026 regulations were a concern to him and his response was: “Yes, it is.”
“It is for all of us,” he continued. “I think the engine manufacturers – or the PU manufacturers that we have to call them – together with the FIA, they made this set of regulations believing that the chassis can follow. And then we have seen that we have to take some drastic steps on the chassis regulations to make it work. But it is technically possible.
“That is why I always say let’s work together in the interests of the whole thing to make it work. I’m quite confident that we can find a set of regs that will make it work and that everybody will be happy with.”
Aston Martin will move on from a long-term partnership with Mercedes predating the 1.6L V6 era when the 2026 power unit formula comes into effect as they switch supplier to Honda. Krack says that his team are already involved in heavy discussions with the Japanese manufacturer about the new power units.
“There is a dialogue on all fronts,” he said. “Be it from sporting – how many passes do you need – be it what structure you need in the paddock, do we sit together, do we do separate, these kind of things because they also have long, long lead times.
“But then it’s also about how is the packaging of the engine in a ’26 chassis from what we know so far. So these are these preliminary talks. You discuss basically from sporting, finance, technical, the whole areas, we all have defined partners or business partners. And the collaboration has started there with discussions regularly. We try to see each other here and there.”
Despite Honda infamously struggling during the early years of the hybrid turbo V6 era after they rejoined F1 as a power unit supplier in 2015, Krack says he is “very confident” that Honda will deliver a strong power unit in 2026.
“I’m very confident because from what I see Honda is fantastic, they are real racers,” Krack said. “They push everything and you see, they are giving the world championship engine.
“It is more about being humble, like how can we cope and how can we maintain a high level with them. But there is no prejudice at all, from what I have seen so far I’m very impressed.”
Seems laptimes are not really representative, let's hope so at least."Fernando's lap considering the laps the tyre had is good. In any case we are not obsessed with the lap [time] in this session, especially because we are testing many things, things that I can't tell and I shouldn't say but we are doing a lot of experiments. We know he is testing things that maybe are not ideal, let's leave it there."
Long runs are not that great but apparently Aston ran with a lot of fuel, and some who were watching it say the balance was better than in other races. I think Fernando said it was okay too.
