2026 Aston Martin Aramco Formula One Team

[diffuser]

Just a complete charlie foxtrot. Honda dropped the ball on the engine side again but a lot of the blame has to go on Newey and the team. The car itself is sub par, the gearbox is a complete disaster and everything just feels half baked. It is mind boggling that they didn't have people embedded with their engine supplier working every day to monitor performance and integration with the chassis and gearbox. That was a total failure of leadership and project management. Honda screwed the pooch but its Aston who let them do it. They wouldn't be in a substantially different competitive position with a Mercedes or RBPT engine.

I guess reading it 1 million times wasn't enought, we needed to read it 1 million and 1.

[Xyz22]

In terms of performance this is the worst power unit of modern Formula 1. Absolutely embarrassing.

[diffuser]

Whilst I admit Honda have massively screwed-up, the _potential_ is there. You may, or may not choose to believe that it will work out. The interesting question is, where do you think Aston would be with a Merc engine right now?

Well ahead of Williams and audi is certain. It's hard to say cause things would have been MUCH different. Instead of winter testing being a waste of time, they would have gotten real data and probably the Hungary update would have arrived in Japan instead of spinning their wheels waiting for the vibrations to stop.

[Sasha]

Key Engineers at Honda have stated that working with AM was beyond hard and nothing compared to working with RB.
I was given the hint of two many chiefs and no order in AM.
Honda always is a easy target.

There was hints from the first day of testing when the Car wasn't ready.
Everyone else tested the Car & PU in a AVL like dyno before hand.
How far did this put them back?
I say the whole season.

I bet the negative points will come flying because people hate the truth.

[Xyz22]

The car is also nothing special, no one is saying that they have an amazing car. The engine is significantly, significantly worse. It's not a F1 engine.

[mzso]

Key Engineers at Honda have stated that working with AM was beyond hard and nothing compared to working with RB.
I was given the hint of two many chiefs and no order in AM.

Really? Where?

Honda always is a easy target.

Maybe because they failed so spectacularly? And not the first time. It would weirder, and wrong if people didn't blame them at all.

[diffuser]

Key Engineers at Honda have stated that working with AM was beyond hard and nothing compared to working with RB.
I was given the hint of two many chiefs and no order in AM.
Honda always is a easy target.

There was hints from the first day of testing when the Car wasn't ready.
Everyone else tested the Car & PU in a AVL like dyno before hand.
How far did this put them back?
I say the whole season.

I bet the negative points will come flying because people hate the truth.

That played a part in the vibration issue but it has nothing to do with the PU performance.

You know Sasha, you're not Honda. You don't need to defend them. You don't need to make excuses for them.
Also, take what people here are saying with a pinch of salt. People are really frustrated right now.

[Rikrikrik]

What I’d most like to know is whether Honda knows where they’re headed with the 2027 engine so it can get closer to the others — something like: “We can have an engine as good as Ferrari’s, we know what went wrong because we underestimated the 2026 project, and we’re already making changes for the 2027 project; we just can’t improve this year because the current project is limited” — or whether they’re truly lost, have no idea what to do, and next year is going to be depressing all over again.

[TyreSlip]

What I’d most like to know is whether Honda knows where they’re headed with the 2027 engine so it can get closer to the others — something like: “We can have an engine as good as Ferrari’s, we know what went wrong because we underestimated the 2026 project, and we’re already making changes for the 2027 project; we just can’t improve this year because the current project is limited” — or whether they’re truly lost, have no idea what to do, and next year is going to be depressing all over again.

Not a lot has been said for the last month or so from Honda. I know their project leader is retiring early.

Orihara stated they expect to be much closer to the leading engines. We will have to wait and see.

[CHT]

Key Engineers at Honda have stated that working with AM was beyond hard and nothing compared to working with RB.
I was given the hint of two many chiefs and no order in AM.
Honda always is a easy target.

There was hints from the first day of testing when the Car wasn't ready.
Everyone else tested the Car & PU in a AVL like dyno before hand.
How far did this put them back?
I say the whole season.

I bet the negative points will come flying because people hate the truth.

In the RB17 road car interview, Bruce Wood from Cosworth share about how AN is good at pushing engine supplier to deliver something that is beyond their comfort zone. And this could possible be one of the reason why Honda is struggling to deliver.

[diffuser]

What I’d most like to know is whether Honda knows where they’re headed with the 2027 engine so it can get closer to the others — something like: “We can have an engine as good as Ferrari’s, we know what went wrong because we underestimated the 2026 project, and we’re already making changes for the 2027 project; we just can’t improve this year because the current project is limited” — or whether they’re truly lost, have no idea what to do, and next year is going to be depressing all over again.

If we remember back to the beginning of the year. There was talk from both Honda and Newey that the combustion wasn't as productive as they wanted it to be. That once they fixed the vibrations/Oscillations, Honda was going to work at improving the combustion for 2027.

There was also talk that they couldn't recover energy at 250kw. So maybe they can recover energy at 250kw or even 350kw but they don't seems to be able to do it as often. They were having problems at Baku.

At Baku, the power looked much better in Quali than it looking in the race. There was alot of talk during Alonso's battle with Bottas. Alonso was complaining that the "K0" was not working. It would not work after turn 16 but it was working after turn 2. They then had to switch to a different map ( they were going back and forth between map 4 and 5). One had more deployment on the straight, the other on the other parts. They seemed to be having a sofware problem that was preventing them from deploying correctly.

[zoroastar]

What I’d most like to know is whether Honda knows where they’re headed with the 2027 engine so it can get closer to the others — something like: “We can have an engine as good as Ferrari’s, we know what went wrong because we underestimated the 2026 project, and we’re already making changes for the 2027 project; we just can’t improve this year because the current project is limited” — or whether they’re truly lost, have no idea what to do, and next year is going to be depressing all over again.

If we remember back to the beginning of the year. There was talk from both Honda and Newey that the combustion wasn't as productive as they wanted it to be. That once they fixed the vibrations/Oscillations, Honda was going to work at improving the combustion for 2027.

There was also talk that they couldn't recover energy at 250kw. So maybe they can recover energy at 250kw or even 350kw but they don't seems to be able to do it as often. They were having problems at Baku.

At Baku, the power looked much better in Quali than it looking in the race. There was alot of talk during Alonso's battle with Bottas. Alonso was complaining that the "K0" was not working. It would not work after turn 16 but it was working after turn 2. They then had to switch to a different map ( they were going back and forth between map 4 and 5). One had more deployment on the straight, the other on the other parts. They seemed to be having a sofware problem that was preventing them from deploying correctly.

thats comforting. not only are they leagues behind in the hardware, not much more can be said about the software. nothing ever gets better. you would think that they could be good at some part of the puzzle. this is amateur hour at its finest. truely, this season is one for the record books. its true, honda is an easy target

hopefully its all just a symptom of the gawd awful PU

[Rikrikrik]

What I’d most like to know is whether Honda knows where they’re headed with the 2027 engine so it can get closer to the others — something like: “We can have an engine as good as Ferrari’s, we know what went wrong because we underestimated the 2026 project, and we’re already making changes for the 2027 project; we just can’t improve this year because the current project is limited” — or whether they’re truly lost, have no idea what to do, and next year is going to be depressing all over again.

If we remember back to the beginning of the year. There was talk from both Honda and Newey that the combustion wasn't as productive as they wanted it to be. That once they fixed the vibrations/Oscillations, Honda was going to work at improving the combustion for 2027.

There was also talk that they couldn't recover energy at 250kw. So maybe they can recover energy at 250kw or even 350kw but they don't seems to be able to do it as often. They were having problems at Baku.

At Baku, the power looked much better in Quali than it looking in the race. There was alot of talk during Alonso's battle with Bottas. Alonso was complaining that the "K0" was not working. It would not work after turn 16 but it was working after turn 2. They then had to switch to a different map ( they were going back and forth between map 4 and 5). One had more deployment on the straight, the other on the other parts. They seemed to be having a sofware problem that was preventing them from deploying correctly.

thats comforting. not only are they leagues behind in the hardware, not much more can be said about the software. nothing ever gets better. you would think that they could be good at some part of the puzzle. this is amateur hour at its finest. truely, this season is one for the record books. its true, honda is an easy target

hopefully its all just a symptom of the gawd awful PU

Unfortunately, I’ve been pessimistic about Honda since last year because of 2015. They’re even weaker now. Honestly, for me next year will just be another year of suffering and Q1 eliminations. And the engine… I truly believe it could even turn out worse than the current one, or at best the improvement will be practically as small as Spec 1 and Spec 2.

[KimiRai]

Maybe it is time for Aston Martin just to pull out off this season and only work on next year

Already did according to Cardile.

[V10FURY]

This engine / PU is a disaster and there is no way that Honda can fix this by next season as this Spec 2 unit is just as bad as the Spec 1 unit. Aston have improved the car which I think is now ahead of Audi and about equal to Alpine. Not the best, but closer to the top 4 teams for sure than at the start of the season. If they had the Mercedes PU they would be fighting to be the 5th best team and closing in on Red Bull, which is still not good enough. The AMR 27 needs to be a significant step up from the current car, but if they continue with this Honda debacle they can write off 2027 as well. That is why I hope Williams agrees to swap engines so Aston can take the Mercedes unit for next year. Otherwise there is zero point in watching this green turd burger circle around for 20 laps, 3 seconds off the pace. Stroll SR must be doing everything he can to ditch this Honda contract and hopefully the FIA are assisting him.