2026 Aston Martin Aramco Formula One Team

[diffuser]

All messy to be honest. As are the spending restrictions before the actual race introduction of a new engine formula (I guess everyone could be given an amount to spend, maybe with more to a new entrant without facilities - somehow Honda comprehensively shot themselves in the foot with that, being neither a new entrant, nor developing when the constraints were freer).

Agreed.

ADUO is good if you have small adjustement, you are not so far and you do little steps upgrades (Ferrari)
But when you are far away and need more work, a new engine, it is not usefull (Audi / Honda)

I'm not sure what you're trying to say but ADUO is the ONLY way you can create a whole new PU. Without ADUO, you're basically allowed an oil change between the end of 2026 and beginning of the 2027.

 Based on FIA

PU Area       Component                                                   2027 Without ADUO
ICE           Main ICE assembly — crankcase, crankshaft, valves, cam        
              drive, etc.
ICE           Combustion chamber, piston, con-rod, ports, cam lobes,        
              valvegear
ICE           Intake system / plenum / throttle                             
ICE           Flywheel                                                      
ICE           Injector spray-pattern tuning feature                         
ICE           Spark plugs                                                   
Exhaust       Exhaust system                                                
Turbo         Turbocharger                                                  
Turbo         Turbo electrical components                                   
WG / pop-off  Wastegate / pop-off valve                                     
PU electrical ICE/exhaust-mounted electrical components                     
MGU-K         MGU-K                                                         
MGU-K         MGU-K mechanical transmission / housing                       
Energy Store  Energy Store                                                  
PU-CE         CU-K / DC-DC / general PU electronics                         
Oil tank      Main PU oil tank                                              
Oil tank      Oil-level sensor                                              
ERS cooling   ICE-mounted ERS cooling system                                
ERS cooling   Non-ICE-mounted ERS cooling system                            
Hydraulics    Hydraulic servo valves / manifold / hoses                     
Hydraulics    Hydraulic actuators                                           
Fluids        Fuel                                                          
Fluids        Engine oil                                                    
Fluids        Hydraulic fluid                                               
Fluids        Engine coolant                                                
Fluids        ERS fluid                                                     
Ballast       ICE ballast                                                   

Legend:
 = Can be updated for 2027 without an ADUO
 = Cannot be updated for 2027 without an ADUO

It isn't ADUO that's the problem. Honda isn't Neo that has to choose between the red pill or the blue pill. They have already chosen the blue pill. They know it's a road that they've never traveled before. It takes R&D time to find the solutions to this power problem. It's not one problem, it's several problems. RBPT aren't whispering in Honda's ear how they solved their problems. Nor is there a guarantee that Honda finds the same solutions. They could be better, so far, they've been worse.

[diffuser]

They should first allow Honda to change the fuel supplier. Stroll and FIA president should be talking to ExxonMobil, if anything. Let Honda use their old fuel partner. The ExxonMobil fuel likely has the best combustion energy. Should eliminate Aramco fuel as the unknown quantity in the engine performance deficit.

I think there are a few points worth separating here:

#1 I wouldn’t really describe it as Honda’s partner. If it were Honda’s partner, you’d expect that relationship to have continued with Honda. It has always been RBR’s partner, so after 5 years, I’m not sure there’s much of a direct connection to Honda F1 R&D at this point.

#2 Honda has been working with Aramco for at least three years, going back to when development of this new set of regulations began. The fuel developed for the RBPT ICE may not necessarily be directly transferable to the Honda ICE, and Aramco has been tailoring the fuel to Honda’s requirements. So if there are shortcomings with the fuel, I think it’s fair to say that responsibility would be shared between Honda and Aramco rather than being entirely an Aramco issue.

#3 I also wouldn’t say Mercedes has the best ICE. The FIA has access to data from the sensors on all of the manufacturers’ ICEs, and the indications are that Mercedes’ biggest advantage is on the electrical side. If Honda had the strongest electrical system, there would be a stronger argument that the fuel might be masking the potential of the ICE. But the electrical side has had its own issues as well and is likely the weakest of all the PU manufactures.

#4 My overall impression is that Honda is still a very capable F1 PU manufacturer, but they waited too long to return to F1 power-unit development. When they did return, they returned with inexperienced talent. That has left them playing catch-up, potentially by a year or more, and are dependent on the ADUO regulations in giving them the opportunity to close that gap.

#5 It's beginning to sound like AMR thinks Honda doesn't have enough of a resource advantaged allotted to them under ADUO to bridge the gap in time for 2027.

So I’m not convinced the fuel alone explains Honda’s current position. There are probably several factors involved, and I think Honda’s relatively late return to PU development is a significant one.

Be honest with yourself.

[etusch]

#2 Honda has been working with Aramco for at least three years, going back to when development of this new set of regulations began. The fuel developed for the RBPT ICE may not necessarily be directly transferable to the Honda ICE, and Aramco has been tailoring the fuel to Honda’s requirements. So if there are shortcomings with the fuel, I think it’s fair to say that responsibility would be shared between Honda and Aramco rather than being entirely an Aramco issue.

You can't say that; that’s just speaking off the cuff. Generally, these fuels are being developed so they can be used in road vehicles without requiring major modifications or any modifications.

A fuel manufacturer might have succeeded in making the fuel's behavior—such as evaporation, in-cylinder temperature control, and flame propagation speed—closer to that of fossil fuels. Since we are dealing with fractions of a second here, even minor differences in characteristics can lead to significant differences in results. In other words, Honda’s current or previous design might actually work well enough with a fuel possessing specific properties, yet it could be getting tripped up by a behavioral shortcoming in the fuel itself. Under normal circumstances, one would expect to achieve similar results when using fuels with comparable properties in engines that are fundamentally similar—which is, after all, the goal. Just imagine having a car that you could only refuel at Exxon stations; that simply wouldn't even exxon will aim. However, these fuels are still in the development stage, and we are dealing with factors that require precise control at very high speeds. A tiny issue could be preventing them from finding that "sweet spot."
But you can't simply say a fuel won't work in a particular engine. You haven't tested it. It will work quite good with some settings. Maybe even better. You can't know

[diffuser]

#2 Honda has been working with Aramco for at least three years, going back to when development of this new set of regulations began. The fuel developed for the RBPT ICE may not necessarily be directly transferable to the Honda ICE, and Aramco has been tailoring the fuel to Honda’s requirements. So if there are shortcomings with the fuel, I think it’s fair to say that responsibility would be shared between Honda and Aramco rather than being entirely an Aramco issue.

You can't say that; that’s just speaking off the cuff. Generally, these fuels are being developed so they can be used in road vehicles without requiring major modifications or any modifications.

A fuel manufacturer might have succeeded in making the fuel's behavior—such as evaporation, in-cylinder temperature control, and flame propagation speed—closer to that of fossil fuels. Since we are dealing with fractions of a second here, even minor differences in characteristics can lead to significant differences in results. In other words, Honda’s current or previous design might actually work well enough with a fuel possessing specific properties, yet it could be getting tripped up by a behavioral shortcoming in the fuel itself. Under normal circumstances, one would expect to achieve similar results when using fuels with comparable properties in engines that are fundamentally similar—which is, after all, the goal. Just imagine having a car that you could only refuel at Exxon stations; that simply wouldn't even exxon will aim. However, these fuels are still in the development stage, and we are dealing with factors that require precise control at very high speeds. A tiny issue could be preventing them from finding that "sweet spot."
But you can't simply say a fuel won't work in a particular engine. You haven't tested it. It will work quite good with some settings. Maybe even better. You can't know

Pretty certain I wrote "The fuel developed for the RBPT ICE may not necessarily be directly transferable to the Honda ICE"

[Tommy Cookers]

They should first allow Honda to change the fuel supplier. Stroll and FIA president should be talking to ExxonMobil, if anything. Let Honda use their old fuel partner. The ExxonMobil fuel likely has the best combustion energy. Should eliminate Aramco fuel as the unknown quantity in the engine performance deficit.

each and every 2026 F1 fuel has the same combustion energy in the quantity permitted for its race
so if EM has more combustion energy we can only believe that EM fuel saves weight in an over-weight car

another poster mentions fuel's 'in-cylinder temperature'
I wonder what those words mean

[etusch]

another poster mentions fuel's 'in-cylinder temperature'
I wonder what those words mean

in-cylinder temperature control
The phrasing might be wrong, my English isn't great—but I wouldn't even claim that I always choose the right words in Turkish.

What I mean by that is this: the effect of the fuel on the temperature inside the cylinder as it evaporates is one of its key characteristics. One fuel might outperform another in this regard—a quality that fuel manufacturers aim to achieve and engine manufacturers demand. In other words, given fixed parameters like compression ratio and engine displacement, designing a fuel that delivers the desired outcome is essentially an exercise in controlling the temperature within the cylinder.
This is a synthetic fuel, and isn't that one of the features you can decide on within the framework of the rules?

[diffuser]

They should first allow Honda to change the fuel supplier. Stroll and FIA president should be talking to ExxonMobil, if anything. Let Honda use their old fuel partner. The ExxonMobil fuel likely has the best combustion energy. Should eliminate Aramco fuel as the unknown quantity in the engine performance deficit.

each and every 2026 F1 fuel has the same combustion energy in the quantity permitted for its race
so if EM has more combustion energy we can only believe that EM fuel saves weight in an over-weight car

Yeah, that is another argument I've tried to make. Worst fuel case scenario wouldn't be much of a penalty during qualifying, for the obvious reason that we don't carry much fuel during quail. During the race, the car would get faster as it shed fuel weight faster than cars with higher energy fuel. We could probably calculate the weight difference for 100L of fuel at the highest energy vs the weight for the equivalent at the lowest fuel energy allowed.

[CHT]

Both Aramco and Petronas are both Title Sponsors + Technical Partner. Worth around $75-80m a year
Exxonmobil Shell and BP Castrol are technical partners in F1 not title sponsors.
Aramco experience in F1 as technical partner started in 2022.

Certainly not the strongest technical partner here.

[ispano6]

They should first allow Honda to change the fuel supplier. Stroll and FIA president should be talking to ExxonMobil, if anything. Let Honda use their old fuel partner. The ExxonMobil fuel likely has the best combustion energy. Should eliminate Aramco fuel as the unknown quantity in the engine performance deficit.

each and every 2026 F1 fuel has the same combustion energy in the quantity permitted for its race
so if EM has more combustion energy we can only believe that EM fuel saves weight in an over-weight car

another poster mentions fuel's 'in-cylinder temperature'
I wonder what those words mean

Honda's Kakuda said preseason they had the matching problem with Aramco's fuel. He's not being replaced due to lack of performance or because of embarrassment. This was already long planned but the time table has been moved forward. His replacement needs to get situated sooner to get the collective synergy in place. Watanabe has mentioned they still don't have the synergy that they had built up with EM. People need to understand that Aramco can't magically catch up in a short time frame like their PR says. Orihara has stated multiple times they are dealing with unstable combustion, which is attributed to characteristics that apparently are sensitive to temperature and operating parameters. In essence, the fuel burn is not combusting as expected/predicted which is according to some analysis an issue with the fuel synergy. I don't have much confidence in Aramco in that the Saudi giant is more a sponsorship and marketing entity and are having issues of their own at home. Besides, this E-fuel has no current relevance to road cars or the F2 and F3 fuels they developed before. Aramco has admitted they are learning from Honda.

[mzso]

I think the 19m reported in May was if they were more than 10% behind on the ice, but that was never confimed, they just said more than 4%. So could be 4 or 10 or something else.

just the fact that the ADUO was updated to include a higher tier of help kindof insinuates that theres a team that is more than 10% down on power. it was a late addition to the rules to help some team that was worse than anyone would have ever expected. (cant name any names without a trigger warning). the fact that it exists in the first place prolly tells us all we need to know.

It's so outrageous that F1 can't even release a proper results list, with who belongs to what tier. For a while I mixed together tiers with the number of ADUO updates, so I thought they were 4-6% (actually people might have misled me towards this direction in this topic).
But it sure seems they have a power gap to everyone else anyone beside (hillariously) Mercedes gets more than one ADUO upgrades to begin with.

[mzso]

I think the 19m reported in May was if they were more than 10% behind on the ice, but that was never confimed, they just said more than 4%. So could be 4 or 10 or something else.

just the fact that the ADUO was updated to include a higher tier of help kindof insinuates that theres a team that is more than 10% down on power. it was a late addition to the rules to help some team that was worse than anyone would have ever expected. (cant name any names without a trigger warning). the fact that it exists in the first place prolly tells us all we need to know.

Overall there is a big failure from the FIA regarding this engine regulation:

- They thought that without MGU H it would be easier to do an engine, and reduce engine performance gap between manufacturers: It did not happen, we are in the same or even worse situation than 2014/2015
- ADUO is based only on ICE, because they thought every manufacturer would be able to reach the max power / energy harvesting allowed on the eletrical side

This is a big fail on all this.
- Engine performance should be mesured on "average available power" of the global PU
- ADUO is useless because it takes time to upgrade engines
- Finally there is already a budget cap on engine (which is good), why limit them ? Chassis is not limited, they can upgrade as they will, it should be the same for engine as they have the budget cap

I'm surprised there isn't any talk about changing the ADUO process. Which is not even codified in regulations, right?

I have a feeling Horner would be complaining loudly every week how the best PU gets an upgrade but RB gets nothing.

That said ADUO is not "useless". But it might not be practical to use all updates, at least not for Honda. (And last I heard Audi is re-designing it from scratch.) Ferrari had no troubles using both already, and the end of the year is still months away.

[mzso]

They should first allow Honda to change the fuel supplier. Stroll and FIA president should be talking to ExxonMobil, if anything. Let Honda use their old fuel partner. The ExxonMobil fuel likely has the best combustion energy. Should eliminate Aramco fuel as the unknown quantity in the engine performance deficit.

each and every 2026 F1 fuel has the same combustion energy in the quantity permitted for its race
so if EM has more combustion energy we can only believe that EM fuel saves weight in an over-weight car

another poster mentions fuel's 'in-cylinder temperature'
I wonder what those words mean

Honda's Kakuda said preseason they had the matching problem with Aramco's fuel. He's not being replaced due to lack of performance or because of embarrassment. This was already long planned but the time table has been moved forward. His replacement needs to get situated sooner to get the collective synergy in place. Watanabe has mentioned they still don't have the synergy that they had built up with EM. People need to understand that Aramco can't magically catch up in a short time frame like their PR says. Orihara has stated multiple times they are dealing with unstable combustion, which is attributed to characteristics that apparently are sensitive to temperature and operating parameters. In essence, the fuel burn is not combusting as expected/predicted which is according to some analysis an issue with the fuel synergy. I don't have much confidence in Aramco in that the Saudi giant is more a sponsorship and marketing entity and are having issues of their own at home. Besides, this E-fuel has no current relevance to road cars or the F2 and F3 fuels they developed before. Aramco has admitted they are learning from Honda.

I never saw you provide any reference for this narrative of "the engine is bad because of fuel". So please do so.

It's frustrating to see the same rumor being reiterated, and presented as fact, with absolutely nothing to support it.

I for one never saw anything to suggest that Aramco is any better or worse than the other suppliers.

[diffuser]

each and every 2026 F1 fuel has the same combustion energy in the quantity permitted for its race
so if EM has more combustion energy we can only believe that EM fuel saves weight in an over-weight car

another poster mentions fuel's 'in-cylinder temperature'
I wonder what those words mean

Honda's Kakuda said preseason they had the matching problem with Aramco's fuel. He's not being replaced due to lack of performance or because of embarrassment. This was already long planned but the time table has been moved forward. His replacement needs to get situated sooner to get the collective synergy in place. Watanabe has mentioned they still don't have the synergy that they had built up with EM. People need to understand that Aramco can't magically catch up in a short time frame like their PR says. Orihara has stated multiple times they are dealing with unstable combustion, which is attributed to characteristics that apparently are sensitive to temperature and operating parameters. In essence, the fuel burn is not combusting as expected/predicted which is according to some analysis an issue with the fuel synergy. I don't have much confidence in Aramco in that the Saudi giant is more a sponsorship and marketing entity and are having issues of their own at home. Besides, this E-fuel has no current relevance to road cars or the F2 and F3 fuels they developed before. Aramco has admitted they are learning from Honda.

I never saw you provide any reference for this narrative of "the engine is bad because of fuel". So please do so.

It's frustrating to see the same rumor being reiterated, and presented as fact, with absolutely nothing to support it.

I for one never saw anything to suggest that Aramco is any better or worse than the other suppliers.

That is all hear say. The facts are that the FIA tests all the fuels from the different manufactures and they all fall within the acceptable range. Like Tommy said the max fuel flow is adjusted based on energy in the fuel.

He would have you believe that ExxonMobil, which hasn’t worked with Honda in five years and whose new fuel Honda has never tried in this completely new, lower-compression engine with no in-cylinder pressure sensors, is a better fit than Aramco, which Honda has been working with since it woke up and figured out it had started late on these new PUs.

[etusch]

That is something that makes things worse. Because, according to the FIA, the Red Bull engine is the most powerful one. No one other than the FIA ​​believes this.

[diffuser]

That is something that makes things worse. Because, according to the FIA, the Red Bull engine is the most powerful one. No one other than the FIA ​​believes this.

The FIA don't have to believe. They have sensors that gather data from all cars that show it. So you see the Mercedes car is faster and think it has to be the ICE is more powerful. The FIA aren't looking at that, it's just looking at sensor data. Merc isn't faster cause the ICE is more powerfull, it's just that the Mercedes is a better all around car, while RBR just has a better ICE.

if you look at the qualifying data between Max and Ant https://www.gp-tempo.com/app?year=2026& ... =telemetry

It easy to make the argument that Max has more power, it's just doesn't carry as much speed in corners.