2026 Aston Martin Aramco Formula One Team

[V10FURY]

I was looking at the race sim vs vcarb. a lot time was lost in straights which isn't a surprise. but equally they were losing a lot in slow speed sections. Is that gearbox related? or they just havent had a chance to dial in a proper setup due to a lack of solid running

Alonso said his lap time changed by almost a second a lap depending on his electric energy discharge and harvesting alone. I think the Aston Martin has huge chunks of time left to find in it once the engine/gearbox and harvesting-deployment issues are addressed. 400 laps is not enough data with how slowly the car was going to get a good set up for the car yet. Aston Martin has only 3 hours of practice running left before qualifying the car. Not a good spot to be in.

[Leon Kennedy]

The company is only worth as much as what the next buyer is intending to pay. LS using left pocket to buy into right pocket is an illusion of valuation..

The massive loan and high interest AMR is paying is just not sustainable for a team struggling for success. The lifeblood for F1 team are sponsorship and prize money. AMR have lost AM as sponsor because AM themselves are struggling and now AMR may also see smaller prize money this year..

I think 2025 financial result could be worse than 2024.

They were still setting up the Wind tunnel in 2025.

quote from the doc "Revenue is expected to continue to grow in future years as a result of exciting new arrivals for the 2025 season. These include a multi-year global partnership with Ma'aden who share a common objective with the team towards a sustainable future in line with Formula One's goal of becoming net zero by 2030 and Glenfiddich, bringing together two timeless brands renowned for their heritage, innovation and relentless pursuit of excellence. "

In 2022, AMR secured a 200m bank loan @ 9%. A borrowing cost of 9% indicate this loan is of significant financial risk.

Quoting Verbatim from AMR financial report for 2023
In 2022 the Group entered into a 5 year agreement to borrow up to £200m at a fixed rate of 9%
interest. The facility has a fixed and floating charge over all current and future assets of AMR GP
Limited (and associated group companies) including a share charge in favour of the lender by all of the
group companies.

In 2024, AMR secure 400m loan @ 10% to refinance its 2022 bank loan. Why would a company replace a 9% loan with 10%? If the group is rock solid and worth 3 billion, why could a company need to pay 10% for borrowing? In comparison, the UK borrowing cost for mortgage is around 4-5%. In the financial world, high interest = high risk of default.

Under the loan agreement, the lender has got charge over current and future assets of AMR GP Limited. This is somewhat like a collateral loan.

Quoting Verbatim from AMR financial report for 2024
During the year the Group went through a refinancing exercise, resulting in the repayment of the previous loan which has been replaced with a 10 year agreement to borrow $400m at a fixed rate of 10% interest. The facility has a fixed and floating charge over all current and future assets of AMR GP Limited (and associated group companies) including a share charge in favour of the lender by all of the group companies.

Depending on the sponsors and revenue, you can take out a loan; the 10% interest rate is definitely high. What they don't say in my opinion is that it is based solely on the performance of the car, the stock prices rise incredibly (look at 2023). If things go badly on the track, it will be a big problem for me. People don't understand that it's a team with several major sponsors and that it relies on achievement bonuses, They can't afford to finish behind like other teams.

[Leon Kennedy]

I was looking at the race sim vs vcarb. a lot time was lost in straights which isn't a surprise. but equally they were losing a lot in slow speed sections. Is that gearbox related? or they just havent had a chance to dial in a proper setup due to a lack of solid running

I'll tell you the truth, from experience, those times mean nothing to me. When the engine is underpowered, it makes you lose everywhere, they were revving 2k rpm less than the other cars in all parts of the track.They haven't raised or changed anything about the setup, and rightly so, as until those issues are ironed out you can't pinpoint the weak points in the aero and chassis.

[zoroastar]

we are seeing now.

Is the Honda engine weak? Yes, of course. But is that the only problem? Absolutely not. Blaming this solely on the engine is merely a way to mask deeper issues and shift responsibility.

yeah, but chances are, if it wasnt slow and unreliable, people wouldnt be micro managing everything they feel is wrong with the team. honda has been basically seperate from everything that you talk about in that post until a few months ago. anyone could dig deep enough about any team on the grid and write an essay on why they are horrible or why they are good, but nobody does it if they are fast. this is mainly a power unit problem, stop trying to make it into some grand conspiracy.

[CHT]

Quoting Verbatim from AMR financial report for 2023
In 2022 the Group entered into a 5 year agreement to borrow up to £200m at a fixed rate of 9%
interest. The facility has a fixed and floating charge over all current and future assets of AMR GP
Limited (and associated group companies) including a share charge in favour of the lender by all of the
group companies.

In 2024, AMR secure 400m loan @ 10% to refinance its 2022 bank loan. Why would a company replace a 9% loan with 10%? If the group is rock solid and worth 3 billion, why could a company need to pay 10% for borrowing? In comparison, the UK borrowing cost for mortgage is around 4-5%. In the financial world, high interest = high risk of default.

Under the loan agreement, the lender has got charge over current and future assets of AMR GP Limited. This is somewhat like a collateral loan.

Quoting Verbatim from AMR financial report for 2024
During the year the Group went through a refinancing exercise, resulting in the repayment of the previous loan which has been replaced with a 10 year agreement to borrow $400m at a fixed rate of 10% interest. The facility has a fixed and floating charge over all current and future assets of AMR GP Limited (and associated group companies) including a share charge in favour of the lender by all of the group companies.

I dont know why you pasted that. Even if the loan was for 2 billion. It would STIll be CHUMP CHANGE. You don't believe that. We disagree...that fine.

In 10 years AMR GP will be worth 6 Billion. Today you probably can't buy a team license from F1 for less than 1 billion.

Audited financial statement are mostly reliable and easily quantifiable, there is no need to second guess how much AMR GP is worth or going to worth in 10 years. AM, which is a seperate entity to AMR, just announced a massive 20% cut on workforce to save around 40m a year cost (CHUMP CHANGE) and they have also terminate sponsorship agreement with AMR which is worth around 25m a year (CHUMP CHANGE).

Throughout history of F1, we have seen many big auto giants and billionaire joining and leaving the sports. And reason people and companies are rich is because they are good with managing their money, not throwing away CHUMP CHANGE. Borrowing 400m at 10% is 40m of interest payment, not even paying off the debt (CHUMP CHANGE).

As for the 400m loan, I have reason to believe this loan may have come from Saudi Arabia investment fund (not bank), perhaps through investment firm Khwarizmi Holding. e.g In May 2024 AMR appointed Ibrahim Khaled I ALMOJEL, a Saudi, as director to help oversea the AMR operation.

LS is wealthy, and wealthy people always like to use other people's money to invest in business with "promising" future, not their own. I think the future of AMR now lies with the lender of that 400m loan. Perhaps the LS has sold the Aston Martin brand name AMR to pacify the lender as some collateral.

[AR3-GP]

we are seeing now.

Is the Honda engine weak? Yes, of course. But is that the only problem? Absolutely not. Blaming this solely on the engine is merely a way to mask deeper issues and shift responsibility.

yeah, but chances are, if it wasnt slow and unreliable, people wouldnt be micro managing everything they feel is wrong with the team. honda has been basically seperate from everything that you talk about in that post until a few months ago. anyone could dig deep enough about any team on the grid and write an essay on why they are horrible or why they are good, but nobody does it if they are fast. this is mainly a power unit problem, stop trying to make it into some grand conspiracy.

Mike Krack said there are problems everywhere.
https://www.planetf1.com/news/mike-krac ... f1-testing

[diffuser]

Quoting Verbatim from AMR financial report for 2023
In 2022 the Group entered into a 5 year agreement to borrow up to £200m at a fixed rate of 9%
interest. The facility has a fixed and floating charge over all current and future assets of AMR GP
Limited (and associated group companies) including a share charge in favour of the lender by all of the
group companies.

In 2024, AMR secure 400m loan @ 10% to refinance its 2022 bank loan. Why would a company replace a 9% loan with 10%? If the group is rock solid and worth 3 billion, why could a company need to pay 10% for borrowing? In comparison, the UK borrowing cost for mortgage is around 4-5%. In the financial world, high interest = high risk of default.

Under the loan agreement, the lender has got charge over current and future assets of AMR GP Limited. This is somewhat like a collateral loan.

Quoting Verbatim from AMR financial report for 2024
During the year the Group went through a refinancing exercise, resulting in the repayment of the previous loan which has been replaced with a 10 year agreement to borrow $400m at a fixed rate of 10% interest. The facility has a fixed and floating charge over all current and future assets of AMR GP Limited (and associated group companies) including a share charge in favour of the lender by all of the group companies.

I dont know why you pasted that. Even if the loan was for 2 billion. It would STIll be CHUMP CHANGE. You don't believe that. We disagree...that fine.

In 10 years AMR GP will be worth 6 Billion. Today you probably can't buy a team license from F1 for less than 1 billion.

Audited financial statement are mostly reliable and easily quantifiable, there is no need to second guess how much AMR GP is worth or going to worth in 10 years. AM, which is a seperate entity to AMR, just announced a massive 20% cut on workforce to save around 40m a year cost (CHUMP CHANGE) and they have also terminate sponsorship agreement with AMR which is worth around 25m a year (CHUMP CHANGE).

Throughout history of F1, we have seen many big auto giants and billionaire joining and leaving the sports. And reason people and companies are rich is because they are good with managing their money, not throwing away CHUMP CHANGE. Borrowing 400m at 10% is 40m of interest payment, not even paying off the debt (CHUMP CHANGE).

As for the 400m loan, I have reason to believe this loan may have come from Saudi Arabia investment fund (not bank), perhaps through investment firm Khwarizmi Holding. e.g In May 2024 AMR appointed Ibrahim Khaled I ALMOJEL, a Saudi, as director to help oversea the AMR operation.

LS is wealthy, and wealthy people always like to use other people's money to invest in business with "promising" future, not their own. I think the future of AMR now lies with the lender of that 400m loan. Perhaps the LS has sold the Aston Martin brand name AMR to pacify the lender as some collateral.

I completrly disagree with your interpretation, so stop arguing the point.

[zoroastar]

we are seeing now.

Is the Honda engine weak? Yes, of course. But is that the only problem? Absolutely not. Blaming this solely on the engine is merely a way to mask deeper issues and shift responsibility.

yeah, but chances are, if it wasnt slow and unreliable, people wouldnt be micro managing everything they feel is wrong with the team. honda has been basically seperate from everything that you talk about in that post until a few months ago. anyone could dig deep enough about any team on the grid and write an essay on why they are horrible or why they are good, but nobody does it if they are fast. this is mainly a power unit problem, stop trying to make it into some grand conspiracy.

Mike Krack said there are problems everywhere.
https://www.planetf1.com/news/mike-krac ... f1-testing

yeah of course there are, just like every team to a certain extent. this is the problem. since we cant "prove" that they could have run a few hundred more laps if they were still running a mercedes engine, there are gonna be people claiming everything under the sun as the "real problem". if they had a reliable PU they couldve actually used testing to work on everything else like other teams were able to do. instead, we wait to watch them iron out all their problems on race weekends, for the first half of the season, during the races.

[f1Follower]

I am not sure what kind of preparations were done by Aston Martin along with Honda. The teams had one shakedown test closed doors which was not exposed to media. AMR did not bring any car so that the engines were not tested in the Barcelona test where the temperatures were fairly moderate to cool. They had 2 3 days sessions in which AMR brought the chassis however they found issues with engine.

I believe Aston had issues of Newey joining late and their Wind Tunnel coming online after some time however they could have made a base version car for Barcelona and Bahrain Test 1 for engines and other aspects to be tested and correlated. Newy's aggressive designs could have come at the 3 - 4 race onwards. With this kind of approach of bringing very aggressive design and sacrificing test mileage they have shot themselves on foot and they will need to write off 2 seasons 2026 and 2027 due to engine and even chassis correlation

[AR3-GP]

What was distinctive was that there were two tiers of orange square objects sitting in front of the internal combustion engine (ICE). This orange box is the battery (Energy Store = ES) and the control electronics (CE), which is the electronic device that controls the power unit. Until last year, these two were laid out in front and back and were one tier.

Why did it become a second tier? According to the head of development, Tetsushi Tsunoda, the large project leader (LPL), revealed that there was a request from the team.

"As we proceeded with the development of the new car, the team requested that it be compact and shorten (the overall length) as much as possible, so we decided to make it a two-stage car."

https://www.as-web.jp/f1/1286322?all

There was a "request" last year to change the energy store. Who joined Aston Martin last year? Adrian Newey. Fast forward to 2026, Honda having energy store problems.

This is Adrian Newey's signature. Push everything to the last minute, push packaging to the brink, push the PU manufacturer to the limit, and create reliability problems. He is a brilliant engineer, but he is also known for causing great strife to technical partners.

I don't agree with people trying to dump this solely on Honda and imo the relationship is already broken. Newey is uncompromising and has little patience when Honda needed the patience that was shown by Franz Tost in 2018. It is Newey's words that leaked from the F1 commission and further damaged Honda's reputation. The media and fans have been relentless and 1-sided in blaming Honda but it is because they don't understand how Formula 1 works.

Honda developed one PU for 2.5 years and then were asked to change everything less than 9 months before the pre-season. Honda has been dealt a bad hand and thrown under the bus. They've been judged unfairly by media and f1 fans.

I know this won't fit the "Newey good, Honda bad" narrative that is being pedaled here. It was always more complicated than that. Honda would probably have a perfectly functioning PU if they didn't change anything 1 year ago. They've attempted to accommodate Newey's request for the greater good, and that caused some problems. AMR should be standing behind them more because so far this has been a PR and reputational disaster for Honda.

We are seeing that Adrian Newey as team principal has its limits. Brilliant designer (Mclaren, Williams, RBR) but hasn't got a clue how to support partners as a team principal. He's only poured gasoline on the fire with his remarks at the f1 commission. Newey in his role as tp should be more open about wanting Honda to change everything at the last minute and causing the problems.

[venkyhere]

Finally some 'info' coming from the Japanese side, instead of cesspool reporting from British/Spanish F1 media. I'm sure the pitchforks and knives would be getting sharpened in many British/EU newsroom meetings about how to 'protect' the superhero who can do no wrong. There are only white and black personalities in media space, just like movies. F1 media is no different. It's not as if I am a Honda supporter - they could have said NO to risky requests when they were pressured into saying YES ; and over and above, might have made mistakes of their own, unrelated to the changes as well.
Just want to close by saying that the blame must be shared, right now it looks like a battle of cultures and battle of egos. Reality has to be somewhere in the middle of what both sides are claiming.

[AR3-GP]

I agree. It's not about whether one is a fan of Honda or not. It is about thinking logically and rationally. A Honda PU won 4 drivers and 2 WCC championships in the last 5 years. If something goes wrong, it is not as simple as "they are incompetent, it's all their fault". There is always more to the story.

[Matt2725]

Question I have, is why didn't Honda tell him no and that it was too late to make such changes?

I would expect there to be an equal partnership agreement with your PU supplier, especially you're Honda's works team.

[hollus]

Saying no to Newey is not easy! You say no, fail to win, and the blame is on you.

That said, Newey has a history of pushing too hard, too far, too fast. Add starting too late, and this looks like a plausible logistics-development-governance disaster. We’ll see how good it comes when it comes good, they might be untouchable in the future…or not.

But this is the first time that Newey is brought into a team with no counterpart, no strong willed manager counterweight, to clean house and take all the big decisions, essentially unchallenged. Time will tell if that was too much or not.

[FNTC]

https://jp.motorsport.com/f1/news/f1-20 ... /10800659/
Translated:

“In the pre-season test, we saw abnormal vibrations. I think that the major cause was that the abnormal vibration caused damage to the battery system system."

"On the other hand, the PU side is, of course, trying to investigate the cause and take measures. We are also taking measures on the side of the car.”

“But what we’re actually doing specifically is that while using the Sakura bench, we are currently using a test bench with a monocoque, and we are actually taking measures against the vibration or analyzing it.”

“The battery system was damaged by abnormal vibrations caused by a combined force of a combined factor in the run. We are working with Aston Martin to solve it, and we are working towards the opening.”

　However, President Watanabe and Managing Director Takeishi also declared that they would take as much action as possible before the opening match. Mr. Takeishi concluded by saying the following.

“There are a lot of things, but we’re going to win.”

Alternative translation by Grok:

"During pre-season testing, we observed abnormal vibrations. I believe the main cause was that these abnormal vibrations inflicted damage on the battery system."
"Of course, on the PU side, we are investigating the root cause and planning countermeasures. At the same time, measures are being implemented on the chassis side as well."
"As for what we're specifically doing right now: using the Sakura bench along with a test rig that has the monocoque mounted, we are carrying out vibration countermeasures and analysis while actively applying fixes."
"Abnormal vibrations from complex factors during on-track running damaged the battery system. Together with Aston Martin, we are working to resolve this ahead of the season opener.
"Both President Watanabe and Executive Director Takeishi declared they will implement every possible measure before the first race. Executive Director Takeishi concluded:
"There are various challenges, but we will definitely go for victory."