2026 Aston Martin Aramco Formula One Team

[GhostF1]

Watching Stroll sit on the back of Albon for 24 laps in the sprint, trying the exact same, predictable move endlessly was frustrating. More so when Alonso caught up and immediately lost 0.5-0.8 per lap in the train.
Alonso Q2 was extremely achievable, the team let him down there. I don't really know what to say about Stroll, his pace compared to Alonso is woeful.

The on paper results are disappointing, but there's been some clear big steps made. Considering Zandvoort is a power track and they are no longer miles off, it's encouraging. My concern is improvements from here on will be much smaller and in line with everyone else making gains.

[makecry]

I am going to maintain, if Honda's upgrade is eventually capable of 30bhp on ICE, this car will be at top of then midfield by the end of the season.

[SSJ4]

Looking at the telemetry of Alonso and strolls best qualy Laps

Stroll is 14&10 km/h quicker than Alonso on the the final straight of the lap. Is it due to software related stuff?

[Ashwinv16]

Tell me one thing, I think you cannot deploy more that 11.5 MJ (7.5MJ max recharge during lap + 4 MJ full battery that you begin lap with) during quali lap using battery any car.

But ICE can deliver more power as much as it can like using quali map? if AMR is able to deploy 11.5 MJ then ICE must be the differentiator when compared to other midfield teams at least in quali.

Looking at the telemetry of Alonso and strolls best qualy Laps

Stroll is 14&10 km/h quicker than Alonso on the the final straight of the lap. Is it due to software related stuff?

Yeah no, the problem is the Honda unfortunately managed to go past the 7.5Mj recharge due to drivability issues and well problem with the software and well due to more power from the Honda. On Alonso side on his fast laps this became a issue in sector 3 where he couldn't deploy the batteries cause well he exhausted the recharge so had practically no energy for sector 3. (this is the talk of missed downshifts). Stroll had problem at the start of the lap where he didn't have enough battery, although he eventually set one the car continue to over recharge due to error on the coding. Software coding issue due to there being more power, the ecu recharged the car like it didn't. However this is at max The car had another 2-4 tenths in pace. Not like a second difference.

[604gtir]

while i understand everyone is frustrated with the lack of peak power, it seems they have enough power now in race conditions to have a lot more deployment than before. I take this as a positive sign, while peak is important for quali, the earlier races they'd just run out of deployment 2 laps in and everyone would disappear down the road.

[Waz]

There's still a lot of fine tuning to come. Plenty to figure out. Deployment maps are complicated, even with machine learning.

[ispano6]

Japanese technical analysis (notably from outlets monitoring Honda's RA626H integration) highlights that while the wing elements flatten effectively, the AMR26's base chassis, sidepod undercut profiles, and exposed suspension architecture carry higher baseline induced drag than leaner rival setups. When transitioning to Straight Mode, the reduction in wing drag is substantial, but the remaining parasitic drag from the bodywork is still relatively high.

[FittingMechanics]

Just to mention, Q1 was run on used tyres by the front runners. This is not the case in most races.

[bigblue]

Japanese technical analysis (notably from outlets monitoring Honda's RA626H integration) highlights that while the wing elements flatten effectively, the AMR26's base chassis, sidepod undercut profiles, and exposed suspension architecture carry higher baseline induced drag than leaner rival setups. When transitioning to Straight Mode, the reduction in wing drag is substantial, but the remaining parasitic drag from the bodywork is still relatively high.

This is an interesting point. Without wanting to start a flame war here, whilst the bulk of straight-line performance is probably due to the PU, it's worth pondering how draggy/how much downforce the car is running relative to others. I'm not sure how this can be determined. Presumably if you know your horsepower, you can look at your acceleration curve and work things out, but then have to start guessing about the opposition's horsepower and work out their drag based on that guess.

[bigblue]

There's still a lot of fine tuning to come. Plenty to figure out. Deployment maps are complicated, even with machine learning.

I think Honda need to up their game on the software side substantially. The engine can be dyno-ed, the throttle applications logged in real life, which gives a good chunk of data from which you should be able to simulate behaviour pretty well. Of course I'm undoubtedly missing a million complications, but from the outsider viewpoint, I kind of hoped this can be done reasonably well before the hardware hits the circuit, then maybe some fine tuning. But I accept I know nothing in detail about how this software is written and developed!

[sn809]

There's still a lot of fine tuning to come. Plenty to figure out. Deployment maps are complicated, even with machine learning.

I think Honda need to up their game on the software side substantially. The engine can be dyno-ed, the throttle applications logged in real life. ..................... But I accept I know nothing in detail about how this software is written and developed!

Yet you posted this and blame Honda. Well done.

[bigblue]

Yet you posted this and blame Honda. Well done.

Thanks for the praise. They have turned up with noticeable problems in deployment and driveability. Really I'm wondering if this is a weakness in software development relative to the other teams, and separately, if this is something that can conceptually be done much better anyway. From a broadly uninformed viewpoint, but using "common sense" (which I accept may be naive), it seemed like this is possible. I'm interested to hear if anyone has any insight or information on how these deployment strategies are developed. It's a pet theory of mine that Japanese companies are still better at hardware rather than software (maybe that's nonsense, but that's my vague feeling). By the way, I do rather like Honda

[KimiRai]

There is likely some extra drag. No macarena wing yet on rear wing, and front wing only third flap is mobile due to nose being mounted on the middle one while most teams have it fixed on main plane. But crucify me for doubting 7 tenths deficit on Zandvoort straights is due to drag.. that is a bit of wishful thinking ispano. I hope Honda improves for Monza or else it will be a second and a half. Not that we were going to be strong there anyways, but it will be horrific.

[Xyz22]

There is likely some extra drag. No macarena wing yet on rear wing, and front wing only third flap is mobile due to nose being mounted on the middle one while most teams have it fixed on main plane. But crucify me for doubting 7 tenths deficit on Zandvoort straights is due to drag.. that is a bit of wishful thinking ispano. I hope Honda improves for Monza or else it will be a second and a half. Not that we were going to be strong there anyways, but it will be horrific.

The engine is significantly behind, that is for sure.
I also think that there are issues related to the integration with the chassis, causing additional issues and therefore impacting the performance in a negative way (on top of lack of power/efficiency).

[FNTC]

Alonso working his magic in the damp conditions, up to p15 at the red flag