This forum contains threads to discuss teams themselves. Anything not technical about the cars, including restructuring, performances etc belongs here.
I’m not sure why any team would bother 'sandbagging' by running only a fraction of the laps their rivals have, all while maintaining limited speeds and looking unstable on track. I remember people saying the same thing back in 2015, but it turned out McLaren (or Honda in particular) was just genuinely behind. Right now, it looks like they're in the same boat.
Mike Crack: "While it is only testing, we know we are missing pace; we have areas we know we need to improve and develop. Everyone in the team is working flat out to ensure we are in the best possible shape for racing."
I still think this is a lot of sandbagging. We'll see the real pace in the next test.
Whatever it is that we have seen in Barcelona and in the first two days of Bahrain ; isn't 'sandbagging'.
It's simply 'not being ready'. Whether that's due to : "not being good enough (PU/cooling/packaging)"
or
"not having gotten enough time due to delay in starting development w.r.t others"
or
''goof up/bug somewhere in the car's evolution that got lost in the commotion amidst all the 'staffing-flux' (not just at top level)"
is something we can discuss for 60 more pages before Melbourne. But definitely what's happening isn't a grand PR scheme to show up as clowns in testing only to remove the mask in Melbourne revealing the assassin underneath. That's probably what Jerry Bruckheimer will want in his "F1" part2 movie. Doesn't happen in real life. Irrespective of whether AMR sort out their car very-quickly/quickly/slowly/not-in-2026 ; what we have seen so far in shakedown and testing, well that's clearly "not being ready on time".
I don't think the car is "that bad", it's possible they want to paint the picture of an hopeless car in order to make the teams less interested in put their noses in their affairs like what happened to Mercedes.
But I do think the Honda engine will be the worst one, if so, Newey should avoid developments that are too taxing toward the engine department and focus on a engine-friendly design.
Wait is Stoffel Vandoorne AM's simulator and test driver?
With Button joining in as an ambassador as well, I find it kind of ironically hilarious that the old McHonda gang together with Alonso, is back to suffer again
Last edited by Emag on 13 Feb 2026, 00:32, edited 1 time in total.
I think people need to be wary of blaming Honda 100% for all of the car's shortcomings. Don't get me wrong, they're definitely behind. But thinking "Oh the car's visually striking but slow so it must be the engine ONLY causing the issues" is the *exact same* trap McLaren (and the Alonsistas) fell into in 2015. Just because Adrian Newey's penned the car doesn't give it the golden ticket. From 2000 to 2020 Adrian Newey's cars won the title four times, and that was all in the same ruleset from 2010-2013. Maybe it was PR posturing, maybe it was true, but Red Bull always downplayed his involvement in the ground effect era as well.
I think maybe, just possibly, people have inflated their expectations here. Even taking Newey out of the equation, what have we seen from this team since Stroll bought it in 2018 that gives people confidence that they could jump immediately to the top? In the last decade, they had half of one good season with the AMR23, which they didn't even develop properly. Their only other podium-quality car was the RP20 which was hardly an original design, and one that they couldn't even properly develop in 2021. Ironically the last two years under the Force India guise was the only time they had consecutive years with top-5 WCC finishes.
"You can't argue with stupid people, they will drag you down to their level and beat you with experience"
- Mark Twain
Honda started last of the current engine manufacturers, and had lost most of their F1 people who created their previous engine. Shades of when they 'rushed' to enter with Mclaren when they did, suggests it may once again take them time to deliver. I think that's quite a reasonable expectation, not least added to the team mostly avoiding pushing the engine to top speed.
How good the car actually is, who can say, but it's pretty difficult to make up for a notable power deficit, as Newey will well remember from a big chunk of his Red Bull career. I guess we'll find out as the season goes and Honda updates the engine etc etc. Equally, not every Newey car is a diamond, and 'fast but fragile' was quite a common state for his creations prior to Red Bull anyway.
Honda is 1 year behind the other PU manufacturers. This is not rocket science and there is no need to criticize anyone here. Check the dates on the press-release when Honda announced the return to F1. It is the summer of 2023 when they started rebuilding and working earnestly. https://www.blackbookmotorsport.com/new ... on-martin/
What is frustrating is all the bs artist and scammers in the spanish media who were delivering fake news and fake hype about the Aston Martin project. They made this project grow 3 heads and people start to believe Newey and Honda are not of this earth and would be able to build a winning project overnight.
Now is the time to make note of every one of these con artist on social media and to remove them from your subscriptions.
