2026 Aston Martin Aramco Formula One Team

[SealTheRealDeal]

If the rumour that they won't run until Thursday is true,

This has been confirmed by the team

Oh dear...

[madridista]

There's plenty of cliffs around you guys can jump off of if needed. The car hasn't even run on track yet...

Agree. The delay is apparently in logistics/assembly. The one or two days they lose wont be what makes the difference, they will have 3+3 additional full days in Bahrain in (guaranteed) dry conditions to test everything with a weeks time inbetween , and another 2 weeks to the race. You can only get so much data. What i learned is that the windtunnel numbers and the car in general look promising, from multiple credible sources.

Just fearmongering PR from Italian media and Planetf1 twisting of Honda quotes at the moment.

[WardenOfTheNorth]

I believe that even with a fully camouflaged livery, the teams are still required by the regulations to display the driver's number on the nose of the car.

This is correct. Article 9.2 states "Each car will carry the competition number of its driver, as published by the FIA, which must be clearly visible from the front of the car and on the driver's helmet"

And then Article 10.2 specifies that this includes testing and promotional events.

[madridista]

"The Aston Martin AMR26 will arrive at
@Circuitcat_es
on Wednesday morning. They will have just finished assembling parts on it that same day, and the plan is for it to hit the track on Thursday.

Newey has pushed the development of certain parts to the very last minute, changing them at the eleventh hour because he believed he had found improvements."

[bigblue]

From the outside, and admittedly I've never been involved with F1(!), this strikes me as a bit odd. Either you miss the first test and rock-up at Bahrain a couple of weeks later, having pushed development on for another couple of weeks and not bothered to develop and construct some effectively temporary parts, or you make this first test. Gaining a day or two, but reducing days on track intentionally seems like an own-goal. Surely you'd rather have the shake-down and begin to get the feel of things, even if very marginally less developed, than get this day or two extension. I guess if you were pushing things to the last minute and miscalculated by a bit, that would explain, but not excuse it?

Just thinking aloud for fun and interest, while we wait

[CHT]

There's plenty of cliffs around you guys can jump off of if needed. The car hasn't even run on track yet...

Agree. The delay is apparently in logistics/assembly. The one or two days they lose wont be what makes the difference, they will have 3+3 additional full days in Bahrain in (guaranteed) dry conditions to test everything with a weeks time inbetween , and another 2 weeks to the race. You can only get so much data. What i learned is that the windtunnel numbers and the car in general look promising, from multiple credible sources.

Just fearmongering PR from Italian media and Planetf1 twisting of Honda quotes at the moment.

Even if its true, logistic and assembly problem reflect poorly on the team internal operation. Team cant possibly be competing in championship with such sloppy internal operation.

Losing 2 days of track time means, 300 engineers at the factory are still living in the dark not knowing how their design concept, PU, parts will run on track. Teams and drivers who have done the testing are already getting their engineers working at the factory on improvement. 300 engineers x 24 hours = 7200 of potential engineering hours per day

Its not a small thing in F1, especially if the aim is to win races.

[Rikrikrik]

The pessimism and negativity surrounding Aston Martin and Honda is well-founded. Honda was a disaster when they returned, and Aston Martin has never proven its worth to this day. The times are different, but the history is there, just like Mercedes, which built a rocket in 2015 and is now well-regarded. Aston Martin and Honda have a terrible track record when it comes to rule changes. Newey is a beast, but hes not a magician. Unfortunately, I just see what happened in 2015 happening again.

[diffuser]

The pessimism and negativity surrounding Aston Martin and Honda is well-founded. Honda was a disaster when they returned, and Aston Martin has never proven its worth to this day. The times are different, but the history is there, just like Mercedes, which built a rocket in 2015 and is now well-regarded. Aston Martin and Honda have a terrible track record when it comes to rule changes. Newey is a beast, but hes not a magician. Unfortunately, I just see what happened in 2015 happening again.

You know, if you don't bother trying to get the year of PU regulation change right. It's obviously you haven't bothered to find what really happened.

[madridista]

There's plenty of cliffs around you guys can jump off of if needed. The car hasn't even run on track yet...

Agree. The delay is apparently in logistics/assembly. The one or two days they lose wont be what makes the difference, they will have 3+3 additional full days in Bahrain in (guaranteed) dry conditions to test everything with a weeks time inbetween , and another 2 weeks to the race. You can only get so much data. What i learned is that the windtunnel numbers and the car in general look promising, from multiple credible sources.

Just fearmongering PR from Italian media and Planetf1 twisting of Honda quotes at the moment.

Even if its true, logistic and assembly problem reflect poorly on the team internal operation. Team cant possibly be competing in championship with such sloppy internal operation.

According to the tweet that i posted on here its apparently because of a change they made very late. I agree that its not optimal, but if anything it must have been a meaningful-/beneficial change that they made in the end that caused the delay. Should be a net positive with the day they lose.

300 engineers x 24 hours = 7200 of potential engineering hours per day

Poor guys, is sleep prohibited under Newey ?

[Rikrikrik]

The pessimism and negativity surrounding Aston Martin and Honda is well-founded. Honda was a disaster when they returned, and Aston Martin has never proven its worth to this day. The times are different, but the history is there, just like Mercedes, which built a rocket in 2015 and is now well-regarded. Aston Martin and Honda have a terrible track record when it comes to rule changes. Newey is a beast, but hes not a magician. Unfortunately, I just see what happened in 2015 happening again.

You know, if you don't bother trying to get the year of PU regulation change right. It's obviously you haven't bothered to find what really happened.

Why this aggressiveness? Honda didn't return in 2014, they only entered in 2015, and I'm not trying to argue about anything, I know everything that happened, and this time Honda also started late. I'm just pointing out the reasons for the pessimism surrounding Honda and Aston Martin.

[dren]

The pessimism and negativity surrounding Aston Martin and Honda is well-founded. Honda was a disaster when they returned, and Aston Martin has never proven its worth to this day. The times are different, but the history is there, just like Mercedes, which built a rocket in 2015 and is now well-regarded. Aston Martin and Honda have a terrible track record when it comes to rule changes. Newey is a beast, but hes not a magician. Unfortunately, I just see what happened in 2015 happening again.

You know, if you don't bother trying to get the year of PU regulation change right. It's obviously you haven't bothered to find what really happened.

Why this aggressiveness? Honda didn't return in 2014, they only entered in 2015, and I'm not trying to argue about anything, I know everything that happened, and this time Honda also started late. I'm just pointing out the reasons for the pessimism surrounding Honda and Aston Martin.

If you want to talk about history, Honda recently produced several championship winning PUs with Red Bull. Mercedes couldn't get their chassis right over the last set of regulations and were chasing the rest. AM has had small bubbles of success, but now with the history of the technical leaders at the team, you'd expect an upward trajectory. And, this is very Newey-esque, push development as late as possible...because history... You can pick and choose all you want from history. We'll see in due time. Your post just reeks of tabloid sensationalism hence the "aggressiveness" from diffuser.

[dren]

isn't this a classic Newey?

for me it is a good omen.

Yeah, pretty much standard OP.

[selvam_e2002]

You know, if you don't bother trying to get the year of PU regulation change right. It's obviously you haven't bothered to find what really happened.

Why this aggressiveness? Honda didn't return in 2014, they only entered in 2015, and I'm not trying to argue about anything, I know everything that happened, and this time Honda also started late. I'm just pointing out the reasons for the pessimism surrounding Honda and Aston Martin.

If you want to talk about history, Honda recently produced several championship winning PUs with Red Bull. Mercedes couldn't get their chassis right over the last set of regulations and were chasing the rest. AM has had small bubbles of success, but now with the history of the technical leaders at the team, you'd expect an upward trajectory. And, this is very Newey-esque, push development as late as possible...because history... You can pick and choose all you want from history. We'll see in due time. Your post just reeks of tabloid sensationalism hence the "aggressiveness" from diffuser.

Honda also struggled with Mclaren in 2015 so, we can not blindly say that it is a rocket ship engine... I still have my doubts till first race Q3...

[dren]

Why this aggressiveness? Honda didn't return in 2014, they only entered in 2015, and I'm not trying to argue about anything, I know everything that happened, and this time Honda also started late. I'm just pointing out the reasons for the pessimism surrounding Honda and Aston Martin.

If you want to talk about history, Honda recently produced several championship winning PUs with Red Bull. Mercedes couldn't get their chassis right over the last set of regulations and were chasing the rest. AM has had small bubbles of success, but now with the history of the technical leaders at the team, you'd expect an upward trajectory. And, this is very Newey-esque, push development as late as possible...because history... You can pick and choose all you want from history. We'll see in due time. Your post just reeks of tabloid sensationalism hence the "aggressiveness" from diffuser.

Honda also struggled with Mclaren in 2015 so, we can not blindly say that it is a rocket ship engine... I still have my doubts till first race Q3...

Honda also dominated with Mclaren in 1988. You can pick and choose what happened in the past as was my point. And the most recent history of Honda in F1 was a PU that was winning races, not the PU they had in 2015. We'll see in due time. I don't expect a 2015 PU at all.

[Jambier]

Plus the 2026 engine are I believe in most part 2022-2025 engines without the MGU H and adapted to new compression ratio, fuel etc.

They are not starting from nothing (except Audi)

One interesting thing tough: Binotto said that between a good and a bad fuel, we can have many tenths of difference.
Is Aramco supplying Honda this year ?