2026 Aston Martin Aramco Formula One Team

[GoranF1]

Behind the scenes Alonso is probably putting the pressure for early Honda exit......

[etusch]

This GP was going to expose the PU gap and it did exactly that. It is what we have and will be for the foreseeable future. They deserve a second chance, personally I will judge them on how they recover from now on. Any kind of misstep will bring a huge amount of pressure though. And I'm not sure Honda could go to another team like after McLaren because I don't think there is one who would want an engine, remember Red Bull was very unhappy with Renault for years, I don't see such a situation at the moment. Unless Honda buys an entire team which also seems unlikely. So Honda really needs to do well, for their own sake in F1. I certainly want them to recover and achieve success with Aston, but what I want does not matter of course.

I don't think it's that simple. For example, on the long straight at the Chinese GP, Ferrari was quite weak against Mercedes. Despite this, they were better in other areas. Where you choose to use your power is also a factor. As far as I remember, when KERS was first used in F1, Mercedes (who were supplying engines to McLaren at the time) did the best job. So they've been good at this from the beginning. And Formula E experience has given them a huge boost. They had more experience and knowledge to find the best design. When the straight is long and the wings are at straight mode, what remains is the drag on the car body. So this might reveal the drag conditions of the cars as much as it reveals engine power. Just as the power needed for higher speed increases with drag, the other side will also show itself. That is, if you have a more draggy car, you will need more power to reach the same speed as a car with less drag. Moreover, you need to overcome this friction not only to reach higher speeds but also to accelerate. This is a factor that increases electricity and fuel consumption. There's enough fuel in the tank to finish the race, but not the electricity. When it runs out somewhere on the long straight, you're helpless. Especially considering there isn't even a real braking zone between the final straight of Monza and the exit to the main straight.

[Bisonas]

Your post kind of proves the point I was making.

I have no objection, neither do I reply to, posts which don't interest me - we are all different, and each of us have a choice to skip posts, or to respond. In fact, I haven't posted in this thread for a long time. I was just responding to the Moderator, who was trying to say "hey, stop posting wild guesses as facts" because that's what's been happening in this thread since the start of the season, very consistently. It's become a 'facebook wall to vent' where 'what exactly could be the reason for deficit' is less important than 'who is to blame for the deficit'. I wuouldn't even have typed this reply, but I didn't want to ignore the multiple 'tell me/us' prompts in your post.

PS : upvote/downvote doesn't happen in team threads, they happen in car-threads/engg-focussed threads (which is a world you probably avoid) where we mark posts +1/-1 based on science, not emotion (I have gotten so many negative votes, and it hasn't made me lose sleep, because it's just a 'vote', it's not a bank account).

I am very aware of where downvoting and upvoting happens.

The fact that you may not know is that, in the old days, and for many years, it used to happen everywhere.

At some point, the moderators decided to delete all the reputation points that were given outside the technical threads and allow reputation points only in the technical threads.

I also want to remind you that reputation points are completely subjective. There are people with hundreds of reputation points who aren't engineers, accumulated simply by finding and posting pictures first, whether at pre-season testing or during GP weekends.

These are people who just love F1 and want to contribute, while also being eager to broaden their knowledge on the technical side of F1.

I do come to the technical threads all the time, and I follow all the developments there because, over the years, I have never stopped trying, as I said, to broaden my knowledge on the technical side of things.

And you should also start coming to the non-technical parts of this forum because they are the best place to learn about F1 and how F1 works and operates as a sport. You should also start broadening your knowledge a bit because, as I said in my previous post, knowing in detail how air flows over a car, or how brakes work, or how a suspension works, doesn't mean that you know anything about how F1 works and operates as a sport.

Yes, here, as you said, things can get more emotional or biased, but that's normal. It's up to you, while accumulating all that F1 knowledge/experience over the years, to start removing the noise and only keep the information you find useful. It's part of the process in any kind of forum, tbh.

Plus, being able to remove the noise while acknowledging and retaining the useful information is a trait that will help you in many aspects of life and in almost any kind of research you may have to do in the future, especially research that involves searching for something in the chaos of the internet.

[Bisonas]

Behind the scenes Alonso is probably putting the pressure for early Honda exit......

Newey & Alonso are definitely putting the pressure on, in my eyes. I just don't know yet if they have Honda's exit as their end game, or if they are simply trying to force Honda to invest more in the project and bring results faster.

There may be some kind of performance-based exit clauses in their contracts with Honda (we don't know for sure), but even if there is such a clause, it would probably apply to their third year of the partnership or later.

I find it very difficult for AMR to be able to break the contract that easily within the first two years of their partnership without Honda's consent.

[CHT]

Behind the scenes Alonso is probably putting the pressure for early Honda exit......

decision like this is above driver's pay grade/
Aston Martin doesnt have much options at this point because Merc already got 3 customer team to support which Toto claim is too many.

Ferrari? The branding will clash with Aston Martin
Ford RBTP? Possible, but RB is not in this to sports to be automotive company. They are marketing for energy drinks
Audi? Too early for the team to supply engine.

[etusch]

Behind the scenes Alonso is probably putting the pressure for early Honda exit......

decision like this is above driver's pay grade/
Aston Martin doesnt have much options at this point because Merc already got 3 customer team to support which Toto claim is too many.

Ferrari? The branding will clash with Aston Martin
Ford RBTP? Possible, but RB is not in this to sports to be automotive company. They are marketing for energy drinks
Audi? Too early for the team to supply engine.

All of them complaining max speed here. Just not as much as aston. Honda will make it at the end. Being patient is the key while this kind of things not achieved overnight. So if alo makes such things behind the scene ( which are against his statements I see on social ) he keeps making wrong choices as his career come here with only 2 wdc while he has more talent

[TyreSlip]

Alonso to start from the pit lane with a new MGU-K and battery, but not a new ICE? How does this make sense when the team will need another ICE to get through the year?

[bigblue]

Not sure, maybe any mileage in the same engine for durability testing is useful right now. Maybe not taking the penalty in case they find some tweaks worth bringing with a spec 3 or 2-and-a-half.

Of course, most likely is there'll be no further spec changes, but it doesn't make a whole lot of difference to swap ICE now to try to save a later penalty, given where they are. So maybe hedging their bets even given the small probability of some more tweaks is fine. All speculation from me, before someone starts complaining a month or two later that "the promised spec 3 didn't arrive"!

[diffuser]

Behind the scenes Alonso is probably putting the pressure for early Honda exit......

decision like this is above driver's pay grade/
Aston Martin doesnt have much options at this point because Merc already got 3 customer team to support which Toto claim is too many.

Ferrari? The branding will clash with Aston Martin
Ford RBTP? Possible, but RB is not in this to sports to be automotive company. They are marketing for energy drinks
Audi? Too early for the team to supply engine.

Manufacturer with fewest teams supplied, has no choice but to supply a team without a PU, unless another PU manufacturer puts up it's hand.

The bigger problem for AM, would be that F1/FIA wouldn't want to lose Honda. So you'd have to fight that. I mean a large part of these regs was to bring automotive manufacturers to F1.

You think the Idea of Alonso quitting F1 and blaming "GP2 engine" as the reason, isn't a painful thought for Honda?

[diffuser]

Alonso and Lawson required to start from the pit lane after using additional power unit elements and then making changes under parc ferme conditions.

[diffuser]

Alonso starting on hards.

[TyreSlip]

Alonso starting on hards.

Well that backfired with LeClerc's idiocy.

[diffuser]

So this might reveal the drag conditions of the cars as much as it reveals engine power. Just as the power needed for higher speed increases with drag, the other side will also show itself. That is, if you have a more draggy car, you will need more power to reach the same speed as a car with less drag. Moreover, you need to overcome this friction not only to reach higher speeds but also to accelerate. This is a factor that increases electricity and fuel consumption. There's enough fuel in the tank to finish the race, but not the electricity. When it runs out somewhere on the long straight, you're helpless. Especially considering there isn't even a real braking zone between the final straight of Monza and the exit to the main straight.

This is true and it might account for the small differences between Ferrari and Merc. It doesn't come anywhere close to explaining the difference between Merc and the AMR26.

[diffuser]

Alonso starting on hards.

Well that backfired with LeClerc's idiocy.

Think you could make it to the end of the race on Mediums

[TyreSlip]

Alonso starting on hards.

Well that backfired with LeClerc's idiocy.

Think you could make it to the end of the race on Mediums

That is asking a lot. I would be impressed if 50 laps could be done on M.

EDIT: They do not think so either. Softs for the restart.