2026 Aston Martin Aramco Formula One Team

[ScottB]

https://www.topgear.com/car-news/opinio ... -heres-why

Things not going well for Honda in general then.

Also, the variant Honda branding that they are using in F1, was for this now canned range of cars, so that makes no sense at all to keep marketing. A pivot back to the regular branding feels like something that will need to come sooner rather than later...

[Farnborough]

Why wouldn't they upgrade the engine? It's what they need to do.

They could and I don't know if things have changed since but going in Australia Honda was saying the problem isn't with the homologated parts.

Do you have a reference for that? Because I didn't hear this.

I do not think the updates are going to be only engine parts, i do believe they are going to change the engine bay sorrounding materials to change their flexing characteristics, apart from that i'm not sure what can be done there.

I would like to think honda has balanced the crank and camshafts as best they could, and it would be a massive miskate not to take than into account, what does that leave us? firing order? diffent or greater piston speeds? i remember the Yamaha MotoGP engine to have a different firing order.

Well, if they can't fully solve it in the engine, they'll need to find something to damp vibrations

If they change the firing order they also to redesign the camshaft and maybe crankshaft, don't they?

I wouldn't be absolutely certain that they didn't make a mistake in balancing the engine. Knowing Porsche could make a similar mistake, around decade ago.

There's not a single "correct" answer in solution to balancing an engine, and draws different views from those responsible as to the most effective.

There's primary, secondary and tertiary vibrations, all competing in positive and negative effect against each other. Its a very involved topic.
Often it will play into where the vibration can be accepted more (little used rpm range) to enhance resolution in a more important phase of power production. They'll never really come up with a conclusive, all encompassing answer.

The traditional (in less performance orientated, and weight conscious designs) make use of balance shaft, harmonic crank balance pulley, dual mass flywheel and torsionsal plasticity in clutch driven plate to cope with things like this in countering vibration. That's really not the scope of a pure performance engine though, just reduction as best possible within that performance and weight constraint, with those methods not usually present in race PU. They are brutally crude in this aspect, and far less resolved than engine people generally have access to.

[mzso]

Obviously, if the team has solutions prepared for Suzuka, there will be changes to both the chassis and the engine. Thinking that only Honda will bring the solutions is ridiculous. Both sides will make changes because the fault lies with both. It's just that AM will never admit it.

What is it in the chassis that could cause or atleast amplify these vibrations caused by the engine? Purely technically speaking. I assume you have something in mind as i understand your wording as super confident.

I wrote earlier today that you dampen the vibrations from several places. It's not about creating the vibrations from tge chassis but helping to dampening them from the chassis.

But that wouldn't fix the problem. As I understand everything behind the monocoque is mounted to the engine. All of which could be destroyed by excessive vibrations, including the engine itself.

Tuned mass dampers were banned already in those Renault years. They can't use them.

In 2026 year, mass damper system used by renault banned by the reason of it is a moving aero thing, aero pats should be static. After this mclaren was said about it we also have a damping system completely legal. I can't see any reason to ban such a thing if so, it is interesting.

Uh, what? I can't make sense of this. It was banned a long time ago, and it never was aero. It was inside the Renaults' nose as I remember.
Not sure what you're referring to about McLaren.

[mzso]

You'll need to know about stabilisation to form opinion from this.

With fixed camera, its usually the optic to be stabilised and keep the image moving on the recording "plane" image chip. And so it gives the ability to "wobble" the lens to the effect of keeping the image stationary on the chip. It has its limitations in frequency etc, but primarily to counteract the pitch (vertical movement of camera) to smooth out the footage recorded. Thats likely to come from suspension movement of the whole chassis.

The example given, appears to have the camera shaking, as a whole unit, which the stabilization will not correct. It would need a camera rig type arrangement (however small, think drone type gimbal) to stop that. Could be there, but not a given.

There's no guarantee that the engine derived oscillations will be vertical though, and likely to be at frequency outside operating & correction sphere of capabilities provided by the camera device anyway.

In short, that's very highly unlikely to show with accuracy any of the vibration that's causing problems with structure and driver's experience.

It's always the whole camera shaking. So I don't know what you mean by this. It doesn't make sense to me.
What else could be the case? Even if the lens and sensor would have its own suspension, what and how would shake them specifically?

The traditional (in less performance orientated, and weight conscious designs) make use of balance shaft, harmonic crank balance pulley, dual mass flywheel and torsionsal plasticity in clutch driven plate to cope with things like this in countering vibration. That's really not the scope of a pure performance engine though, just reduction as best possible within that performance and weight constraint, with those methods not usually present in race PU. They are brutally crude in this aspect, and far less resolved than engine people generally have access to.

This reinforces my expectation that only an engine re-design would really fix the vibration issue.

[Nikosar]

We are getting more questions than answers from Race 2
Race1 - The vibrations were nominal (Lance stated the vibration reduced, Alonso stated no change in vibrations)
Race1 - Honda stated that they have solution for the vibrations and same was implemented for the race, was it permanent or temporary measures.
Race2 - Extreme vibration for Alonso, what abt Lance ?
Race2 - No updates from Honda assuming we carry forward the solution from race1

We have more vibration in race2, what changed, did they reduce the fuel limit or increase the PU output

Also, what is the cause of the vibration, is it ICE, MGU or battery..

I feel like Alonso pushed the car “more” and tired to drive as a he would drive in a normal race. Race 1 they were more cautious. And still race 2 they still running with limitations… we can expect more DNF coming in the next GPs.

Now they have more data with race 2.

What is strange is the Honda and Aston were more optimistic and thought they can finish the race. The result shows that the countermeasures implemented are not working as they expected.


I imagine the pressure is at the sky for next GP.

[collindsilva]

We are getting more questions than answers from Race 2
Race1 - The vibrations were nominal (Lance stated the vibration reduced, Alonso stated no change in vibrations)
Race1 - Honda stated that they have solution for the vibrations and same was implemented for the race, was it permanent or temporary measures.
Race2 - Extreme vibration for Alonso, what abt Lance ?
Race2 - No updates from Honda assuming we carry forward the solution from race1

We have more vibration in race2, what changed, did they reduce the fuel limit or increase the PU output

Also, what is the cause of the vibration, is it ICE, MGU or battery..

I feel like Alonso pushed the car “more” and tired to drive as a he would drive in a normal race. Race 1 they were more cautious. And still race 2 they still running with limitations… we can expect more DNF coming in the next GPs.

Now they have more data with race 2.

What is strange is the Honda and Aston were more optimistic and thought they can finish the race. The result shows that the countermeasures implemented are not working as they expected.


I imagine the pressure is at the sky for next GP.

Seems the countermeasures applied were temporary to save the batteries, more of a permanent solution should be available for the next race.
With a cancellation of R4 and R5, R6 Miami will be crucial, if AMR is able to run complete race distance for R3 there will be some hope of better improvements after summer break,

[Leon Kennedy]

Imagine, if they had told us two months ago that the goal was to finish the races. Speechless.


I don't know if you've heard Krack's statements, but he says that vibration is a reliability issue that doesn't significantly impact performance.
Speechless again

[diffuser]

You'll need to know about stabilisation to form opinion from this.

With fixed camera, its usually the optic to be stabilised and keep the image moving on the recording "plane" image chip. And so it gives the ability to "wobble" the lens to the effect of keeping the image stationary on the chip. It has its limitations in frequency etc, but primarily to counteract the pitch (vertical movement of camera) to smooth out the footage recorded. Thats likely to come from suspension movement of the whole chassis.

The example given, appears to have the camera shaking, as a whole unit, which the stabilization will not correct. It would need a camera rig type arrangement (however small, think drone type gimbal) to stop that. Could be there, but not a given.

There's no guarantee that the engine derived oscillations will be vertical though, and likely to be at frequency outside operating & correction sphere of capabilities provided by the camera device anyway.

In short, that's very highly unlikely to show with accuracy any of the vibration that's causing problems with structure and driver's experience.

It's always the whole camera shaking. So I don't know what you mean by this. It doesn't make sense to me.
What else could be the case? Even if the lens and sensor would have its own suspension, what and how would shake them specifically?

The traditional (in less performance orientated, and weight conscious designs) make use of balance shaft, harmonic crank balance pulley, dual mass flywheel and torsionsal plasticity in clutch driven plate to cope with things like this in countering vibration. That's really not the scope of a pure performance engine though, just reduction as best possible within that performance and weight constraint, with those methods not usually present in race PU. They are brutally crude in this aspect, and far less resolved than engine people generally have access to.

This reinforces my expectation that only an engine re-design would really fix the vibration issue.

If they don't know the cause of the vibration, what makes you think that a complete redesigned of the ICE, would NOT just bring the same result?

Remember, Honda claims it doesn't vibrate like this on their full chassis dyno.

[diffuser]

Starting to think that having this fixed by the Japan race was a hope by Honda. My worst fears are that they haven't figured it out yet.

[mzso]

If they don't know the cause of the vibration, what makes you think that a complete redesigned of the ICE, would NOT just bring the same result?

Why wouldn't they. They've been testing and analyzing it for a month now, or more.

Remember, Honda claims it doesn't vibrate like this on their full chassis dyno.

With such crippling issues, I doubt they didn't notice any more vibrations than their previous PU compared to their previous design. More like they underestimated the importance, how the effect will be much magnified in a real car.
Perhaps they thought the vibrations are acceptable. Either that or their rig was immune to and/or absorbent of vibrations.

Hopefully they'll reveal it. In the past they were rather open about the issues, once they were fixed.

[etusch]

What is it in the chassis that could cause or atleast amplify these vibrations caused by the engine? Purely technically speaking. I assume you have something in mind as i understand your wording as super confident.

I wrote earlier today that you dampen the vibrations from several places. It's not about creating the vibrations from tge chassis but helping to dampening them from the chassis.

But that wouldn't fix the problem. As I understand everything behind the monocoque is mounted to the engine. All of which could be destroyed by excessive vibrations, including the engine itself.

Tuned mass dampers were banned already in those Renault years. They can't use them.

In 2026 year, mass damper system used by renault banned by the reason of it is a moving aero thing, aero pats should be static. After this mclaren was said about it we also have a damping system completely legal. I can't see any reason to ban such a thing if so, it is interesting.

Uh, what? I can't make sense of this. It was banned a long time ago, and it never was aero. It was inside the Renaults' nose as I remember.
Not sure what you're referring to about McLaren.

https://www.motorsport.com/f1/news/bann ... h/4788122/

[basti313]

If they don't know the cause of the vibration, what makes you think that a complete redesigned of the ICE, would NOT just bring the same result?

Why wouldn't they. They've been testing and analyzing it for a month now, or more.

Remember, Honda claims it doesn't vibrate like this on their full chassis dyno.

With such crippling issues, I doubt they didn't notice any more vibrations than their previous PU compared to their previous design. More like they underestimated the importance, how the effect will be much magnified in a real car.
Perhaps they thought the vibrations are acceptable. Either that or their rig was immune to and/or absorbent of vibrations.

Hopefully they'll reveal it. In the past they were rather open about the issues, once they were fixed.

I think this is still one of the most puzzling points here: Why did they not see the issue earlier?
Was the whole engine late and not even on the dyno or only short periods?
Was it seen as not relevant, only once it killed batteries and is unbearable for the drivers?

If it is mechanical vibration they still need mechanical changes on parts that are moving...as far as I can see it, this is not even allowed. So what do they want to change till Japan?

[Redragon]

Seen Alonso footage is not way to minimise vibrations through the steering wheel or system?!

[FNTC]

You dont really want to dampen the steering, it needs to be sharp.

[mzso]

Was the whole engine late and not even on the dyno or only short periods?
Was it seen as not relevant, only once it killed batteries and is unbearable for the drivers?

It's possible if the rumors are true of late engine spec change. New turbo and such.
I think it was immediately relevant in the

If it is mechanical vibration they still need mechanical changes on parts that are moving...as far as I can see it, this is not even allowed. So what do they want to change till Japan?

I'm tired of reading this. Reliability updates can always be pushed. There's hardly a clearer reliability issue than this.

Seen Alonso footage is not way to minimise vibrations through the steering wheel or system?!

That would only help the driver. The engine would still destroy itself and a wide variety of parts on the car over time.