A place to discuss the characteristics of the cars in Formula One, both current as well as historical. Laptimes, driver worshipping and team chatter do not belong here.
That is an absolute chasm below the side pod and wow, the flow to the rear will be exceptional with that much area opened up below the pod. Looks like it goes all the way to the cockpit. Wow. Underbite? Really, really impressive car design with some real creativity--speaking of which, the rear suspension is bonkers. This will be an exciting car to watch develop.
rear suspension is the biggest part, cant explain how it can hold
Williams in 2012... As well as, Lotus, toro Rosso, Mercedes, Redbull and and others in some years following that. It's a big metal stub holding the joints. It can take thousands of pounds force without bending.
Edit. Aerodynamically the AMR 26 is more extreme versions of those. Seeing the photos now.
The top wishbones are exttremely high up! Ver extreme take!
Last edited by PlatinumZealot on 30 Jan 2026, 03:20, edited 1 time in total.
Unfortunately not too many nice images, but enough to see the general direction they are going for. From my interpretation, it looks like a hybrid between Mercedes and Ferrari. Both suspensions (front+rear) are intersting and I think Honda has enabled them to have quite extreme packaging, so this is, as far as I can tell, the only car which has a huge undercut (+ thin sidepods) as well as a relatively thin centerline.
The front is like a combination between Audi, RedBull and Mercedes. Audi because the nose is kinda bulbous at the front. RedBull because of the way it tapers in from that bulbous shape, and Mercedes because to me it looks like their top flap is also relatively "flat" and it's not generating too much upwash.
Of course we have no idea which concepts are working and which aren't the moment, so I can't really make any comments on "potential performance". But I made a comment earlier about this car looking like a more "aggressive" Mercedes and I still stand by that opinion. In my opinion it's more aggressive because it incorporates ideas from other teams while also being innovative in some aspects. The thin downwashing sidepods got a hint of McLaren in them, but the fact that they don't go fully down to the floor, makes me connect them more with the Mercedes/Ferrari approach rather than McLaren. Although McLaren do have a huge undercut, so I honestly don't really have the expertise to make the distinction between them.
As a car, it looks really good and developed with a lot of interesting details on it. Honda is a bit of a question mark. If this turns out to be a very competitive chassis, I hope the engine doesn't let them down.
Can anyone confirm if the moveable element on the front wing has to extend all the way to the endplates? If not, can there be potential benefits to leaving the end portion of either of the elements? For an aero gain such as spinning up vortices onboard of the front tires? Can any of you aero geniuses let us know?
If not, I definitely agree with those that thing the nose is temporary. If Aston had issues passing the crash test (anyone for that matter), they may design a wider nose to pass the test and taper it inward to help ease off some of the negative flows created from the changes to the nose. If we keep in mind the point of the aero philosophies of these regs, they would want to maximize the amount of clean air to the rest of the car. The benefits of a nose that...bulbous, would have be large.
It all depends on the losses I guess. Like we all say, the flows coming off the front wing propagates down to the entire car. If I was to guess, if this wing is indeed similar in geometry to the final version, then I think what Newey is trying to accomplish is maximum attachment through a wider range of pitch angles to help minimize the losses down stream or, the extra potential losses they might experience more than other teams from having the sidepods tucked up as they are. Just spit balling here.
This undercut is big and the sidepods themselves are very thin, it looks like Aston managed to keep the front tyre wake outboard without using big sidepods. This makes me almost 100% sure that this front wing and the nose are a dummy and the real one will look much different and more complex.
yeah i agree. the front wing not being adjustable on this one too. maybe they have something that they want to wait to reveal. tbh that pic makes it look like the whole nose was spray painted in a different shade of black just to troll the other teams haha
Indeed, but with the new radius/curvature limits in the recent rulesets it's harder to implement them. Alpine showed how to do it for the 2022- rules first and others immediately followed suit
This undercut is big and the sidepods themselves are very thin, it looks like Aston managed to keep the front tyre wake outboard without using big sidepods. This makes me almost 100% sure that this front wing and the nose are a dummy and the real one will look much different and more complex.
yeah i agree. the front wing not being adjustable on this one too. maybe they have something that they want to wait to reveal. tbh that pic makes it look like the whole nose was spray painted in a different shade of black just to troll the other teams haha
I think it's more than that. It's like they covered the proper nosecone with something. People are too quick to ignore these:
Composite noses don't get wrinkled up like that. Unlike bottom patch, which might be wing adjustment related, There's nothing in particular that should be at the area of the top one.
Also the nose and wing is more matte then the rest of the car.
Mercedes in 2012 placed their DRS actuators in the rear wing end plate, rather than using a central actuator. Is it possible that AMR are doing that for the front wing?
This undercut is big and the sidepods themselves are very thin, it looks like Aston managed to keep the front tyre wake outboard without using big sidepods. This makes me almost 100% sure that this front wing and the nose are a dummy and the real one will look much different and more complex.
yeah i agree. the front wing not being adjustable on this one too. maybe they have something that they want to wait to reveal. tbh that pic makes it look like the whole nose was spray painted in a different shade of black just to troll the other teams haha
I think it's more than that. It's like they covered the proper nosecone with something. People are too quick to ignore these: https://i.postimg.cc/598fcDt4/AM-2026.png
Composite noses don't get wrinkled up like that. Unlike bottom patch, which might be wing adjustment related, There's nothing in particular that should be at the area of the top one.
Also the nose and wing is more matte then the rest of the car.
Yep. I think the nose assembly has a matt black vinyl wrap on it, rather than plain carbon as the rest of the car. Plainly something else to come here.
With its broad nose, heavy undercuts, Devil-horns and triangular airbox, does anyone else think AMR26 is reminiscent of MP4-20, another of Adrian's designs from 2005?
