[ 2020 ] Aston Martin RedBull Racing F1 Team - Honda

[Wouter]

Any news on Max's failure?

No, still no message from Honda.
Wouldn't they understand that everyone is anxiously waiting to see why the RB16 failed twice in a row,
the cause and the solution?

[godlameroso]

Suppose they figured out the cause, and already briefed the relevant parties. Why would the conversation have to go to people beyond that? Honda was just as frustrated as Max was, because they know they had a chance for another good result. At this point it only matters how they respond to the challenge, winners take setbacks as learning moments and improve as a result. Suffice to say the problem is unlikely to happen again in the same way it has happened in the last two rounds. Worst case scenario Honda will implement an override, as the cause was a safety measure built in that was triggered by faulty signals.

[Wouter]

Suffice to say the problem is unlikely to happen again in the same way it has happened in the last two rounds.

You mean, just like they did after the DNF in Monza?
"The problem from Monza has been solved and it won't happen again."
Three days later it happened again.
Hence, it would be nice if they said what caused the problem. They don't have to go into details.

[godlameroso]

Suffice to say the problem is unlikely to happen again in the same way it has happened in the last two rounds.

You mean, just like they did after the DNF in Monza?
"The problem from Monza has been solved and it won't happen again."
Three days later it happened again.
Hence, it would be nice if they said what caused the problem. They don't have to go into details.

What happened in Monza was not the same as what happened in Mugello, the symptom was similar but the fault was not. There was also not enough time to fix the issue, over the past two weeks there was time to fix the issue as there was enough time to take the car apart completely and use new parts. There was also time to examine what parts of the car were causing the issue and what to do should something similar happen, steps were also taken to minimize the chances of it happening again.

Honda is pushing hard this year, even though improving the power unit is not possible, the power unit installation and integration can still be pushed which improves chassis performance. It's not something that's immediately obvious, however Honda keeps bringing packaging improvements to the ancillaries, sensors, and other parts.

[Wouter]

You mean, just like they did after the DNF in Monza?
"The problem from Monza has been solved and it won't happen again."
Three days later it happened again.
Hence, it would be nice if they said what caused the problem. They don't have to go into details.

.
What happened in Monza was not the same as what happened in Mugello, the symptom was similar but the fault was not.
There was also not enough time to fix the issue, over the past two weeks there was time to fix the issue as there was enough time to take the car apart completely and use new parts. There was also time to examine what parts of the car were causing the issue and what to do should something similar happen, steps were also taken to minimize the chances of it happening again.

Honda announced before Mugello that the problem was fixed and you say NO, they didn't?

10 Sep 2020,

Tanabe: Although we won in Monza it was in some ways quite a tough weekend, especially as we had a problem during the race which led to Max having to retire, in order not to damage the engine.
We have analysed the problem and have taken measures to ensure this problem does not recur. We also learned a lot about dealing with the new PU Mode regulation and we expect to make use of the knowledge gained over the course of the weekend.

How do you get this information from the past two weeks? Honda hasn't announced anything at all yet.

[Sieper]

They did say before Mugello that if this didn’t fix it they would be in trouble. Or something along those lines. I am not yet confident this issue is resolved or even solvable. Without the constraints of the current season mad dash.

[Wouter]

They did say before Mugello that if this didn’t fix it they would be in trouble. Or something along those lines.

Was the issue irregular?

Tanabe: If that issue arose often, it would be troublesome/a bit difficult [to find the cause].

[godlameroso]

They did say before Mugello that if this didn’t fix it they would be in trouble. Or something along those lines.

Was the issue irregular?

Tanabe: If that issue arose often, it would be troublesome/a bit difficult [to find the cause].

Don't confuse the symptom with the issue. You can have similar symptoms but different underlying causes(issues). The lack of power is a symptom, the issue that causes that symptom is not the same from Monza to Mugello. The symptom and the issues that cause the symptom are related but not the same.

[Sieper]

That could very well be true. But since the rule change they do suddenly run into those issues. That is worrisome to me. I was already worried after Monza, in fact, even a bit before that when next to Mercedes also Honda pushed for an extension to after Spa.

Let’s see. The weekend is about to start. Season is over anyway. Now we can just hope they do find the reliability back and actually be close.

[Wouter]

.................

And again, NO answer to my question about your information.

You pretend you work for Honda and speak to insiders. If I ask about that, you don't answer, again.
In this evasive way, your reports about Honda cannot be taken seriously.

What happened in Monza was not the same as what happened in Mugello, the symptom was similar but the fault was not.
There was also not enough time to fix the issue, over the past two weeks there was time to fix the issue as there was enough time to take the car apart completely and use new parts. There was also time to examine what parts of the car were causing the issue and what to do should something similar happen, steps were also taken to minimize the chances of it happening again.

How do you get this information from the past two weeks? Honda hasn't announced anything at all yet.

[godlameroso]

.................

And again, NO answer to my question about your information.

You pretend you work for Honda and speak to insiders. If I ask about that, you don't answer, again.
In this evasive way, your reports about Honda cannot be taken seriously.

What happened in Monza was not the same as what happened in Mugello, the symptom was similar but the fault was not.
There was also not enough time to fix the issue, over the past two weeks there was time to fix the issue as there was enough time to take the car apart completely and use new parts. There was also time to examine what parts of the car were causing the issue and what to do should something similar happen, steps were also taken to minimize the chances of it happening again.

How do you get this information from the past two weeks? Honda hasn't announced anything at all yet.

Remind me where I said any such thing? You ask I answer. I have nothing to do with Honda other than owning a lot of them and having a business that works on them.

[Sieper]

Your thoughts are always well appreciated Godlameroso, at least by me. Wouter, we simply don’t know. I don%to expect we’ll ever hear anything officially on why these issues happened. If they are solved already this weekend it will be a big relief to me.

Last Friday in the ziggo F1 chat program they did say A big push was made, both from RBR and Honda for improvement towards this weekend. I think they will have been told that. Let’s hope it turns out for the better.

[Wouter]

And again, NO answer to my question about your information.

You pretend you work for Honda and speak to insiders. If I ask about that, you don't answer, again.
In this evasive way, your reports about Honda cannot be taken seriously.

How do you get this information from the past two weeks? Honda hasn't announced anything at all yet.

.
Remind me where I said any such thing? You ask I answer. I have nothing to do with Honda other than owning a lot of them and having a business that works on them.

Last week you got the same question from me twice as above in a PM.
You may not remember, but then I also got an evasive answer.
If you post information here that only the people at Honda know, I would like to know if you got that information from Honda itself. Also now on the forum you don't answer my question, which is basically the same as those two in my PMs.

It may be that you delete your PM messages immediately, so I will now send you my PM again from last week, then you can see that even then, after my second time, you still did not answer. Just as I did not receive an answer to my question on the forum yesterday:
"How do you get this information from the past two weeks? Honda hasn't announced anything at all yet."
Hopefully you now do remember and it is a little clearer to you.

You also sent me a PM on Jan 25, 2020 telling me that you live in Miami and work with people from Honda like 3 or 4 months of the year, and that you hear things, talk to people and they tell you stuff (your words).

That is why I would like to know if you have inside information this time too.

[Sieper]

People are not always obliged to answer, it is a courtesy. From this topic I seem to have understood that GL is just thinking about what is going on down, seems not to be inside information this time. Which I think is quite unique to get anyway. At this moment the situation is tenser than ever before, I think Honda and RBR staff will be tight lipped. I don’t want to but in (like I am doing) but please guys, get along. Just a few days and we will know more anyway.

[Wouter]

TOYOHARU TANABE
TECHNICAL DIRECTOR, HONDA F1

After the last triple header, we now start a period of races with the more usual two week break in between.
Using the time since Mugello, our priority has been to carefully analyse the reason for Max’s retirement in that race.
Our investigation revealed that several factors caused the problem and we have been able to apply countermeasures to deal with each of these, with the aim of ensuring the fault does not happen again.

The Sochi track presents a very different challenge to the last three high speed circuits, Spa, Monza and Mugello. It has some street circuit characteristics, such as several 90 degree turns, but it also has two quite long straights. As usual we will spend free practice optimising PU performance for qualifying and the race and look forward to a trouble-free weekend with all four cars. We hope Daniil enjoys his home race and has a good result.