2026 Aston Martin Aramco Formula One Team

[diffuser]

There isn't an event where they put all the PUs on dynos and put them through a set of tests and compare to see who's better. Speed trap value are highly unreliable for PU power comparisons cause .1 of drag difference makes 70kph speed difference on the speed traps at 350 kph. so it's more of an efficiency of the whole car test than PU power test. In today's F1, well when you're not in PU regs change year, you're never gonna win unless your PU, chassis and aero are close to the best. So let's not put shade on Honda where they deserved to be in the light.

[f1Follower]

Is it possible for FIA to disqualify honda for being such a bad manufacturer and force enginer supplier to provide engine to aston ?. I dnt think aston being lapped by new enntrants does F1 brand any good and they might become safety risk. Donkey racing in race of horses. I fully blame aston for this debacle. They did not learn from mclaren at all. Honda is good enough for 100cc bike and biat engines, they dnt deserve to be in F1. We dnt need GP3 manufacturers here.

In hybrid era Honda has sucked on the first attempt. Only after some sort of coping they understand the mistakes and fix their engine. However when RB was winning for fun they were not appreciated.

It has never been the best engine, in 2021 Redbull won thanks to Max Verstappen and the great chassis, remember the big Mercedes engine? On the straights, they were 0.5 s faster in Brazil and Arabia. Verstappen was forced to adopt a low-downforce wing in Abu Dhabi to cope. Furthermore, the engine could have been developed until 2022, and RB Powertrain did so by gaining experience. Honda, however, continued to produce the engine due to operating costs.

Basically from 2019 to 2021 they made a good engine, never the best.

But I also have to be honest, this agreement was reached in 2023 after the Saudi GP, Honda was negotiating with McLaren and in the end accepted Aston because it was doing well. I also agreed at the time, because Honda was winning with Red Bull, and it still makes me laugh. It was said that Aston Martin was behind Red Bull because of their Mercedes addiction. Then we all know how that ended.

The problem that many don't say is that this situation was actually predictable, guys, some negative news came out that we have been toning down since the beginning of 2025.Not to mention they didn't use all the available budget in '23 and '24 for the engine.

How can you say they didn't have time? They've had three years and haven't made a decent engine. And now we're supposed to hope for the ADUO? I mean, they didn't do it in 3 years, will they do it in 6 months? Come on guys, we have to be realistic, if they do poorly in Melbourne, they'll always do poorly, that's the truth.

But this time around even the gearbox is made by AMR and that could be the issue or the issue is that both engine and gearbox are not good enough to sustain the high revs required to charge the battery. Battery charging was same in the last era cars so that should not be major challenge however the cooling requirements for the battery at such a load is a chassis requirement. I think both Aston and Honda are at fault.

[diffuser]

We can belabour the point for days. We don’t have more data than that. Yes, it can be both.

[AR3-GP]

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[dialtone]

The two energy recovery limits that Honda couldn’t achieve, and which were mentioned in the Benson article, are related to the ICE spinning the MGU-K. There are no energy recovery limits while the car is on the brakes.

There is no such thing. The MGU-K is attached directly to the shaft via its own transmission, it doesn’t have any decoupling from propulsion.

You can only charge via MGUK if the wheels move, MGUK adds a magnetic field that makes the engine do more work for the same speed

That’s actually incorrect. The K is coupled to the crankshaft at the front of the engine, but the crankshaft can be disconnected from the driveshaft via the clutch at the back, thereby disconnecting the K from propulsion and allowing for standstill recharging. This construction is also why revving the engine high on downshifts is beneficial for charging, because high revs mean the crankshaft is spinning faster, ergo the K can harvest more.

However, what Benson was talking about with the 250kW and 350kW is likely super-clipping (250) and regenerative braking (350). Basically Honda can’t regenerate fully in either mode, which is a bit of a disaster and indicates a fundamental limitation in the hybrid system.

While what I wrote was incorrect I don’t think it materially changes my conclusions on the topic. Mostly because as pointed out by others, they spend very little time of a lap with the clutch engaged.

However I think the downshifting happens without clutch likely, but even if it did we’re talking about milliseconds, the revving up is just the shortening of the gear.

[McFAN]

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Couldn't agree more

[Abarth]

Regarding the Battery, the new regulations are not trivial.
They have the same energy window (4 MJ) but will be charged -the more difficult task for a battery- with almost 3x compared to 2025. The only relief is that the Battery can be 35 instead of 20 kg. It is not trivial task. However, it's difficult to understand why this could not be tested on the bench.

[API]

Adrian tells how things are.

Honda!

https://www.bbc.com/sport/formula1/arti ... 7e1djpg3mo

[Leon Kennedy]

Regarding the Battery, the new regulations are not trivial.
They have the same energy window (4 MJ) but will be charged -the more difficult task for a battery- with almost 3x compared to 2025. The only relief is that the Battery can be 35 instead of 20 kg. It is not trivial task. However, it's difficult to understand why this could not be tested on the bench.

Yes, absolutely, but consider that it's like going from a mild hybrid to a full hybrid in road cars; what changes is not so much the battery capacity, but the electric motor. The power of the latter and the frequency, as you mentioned, determine how many times it charges the battery. I'm curious to see how this affects the speed, though. It's obviously a parallel system where both the electric motor and the ICE provide traction to the wheels, I wonder how they make it work.

So far it has been said that ICE is the most important part because it charges the electric, but it must be said that the difference between a good electric motor and a bad one is also important.

[diffuser]

Regarding the Battery, the new regulations are not trivial.
They have the same energy window (4 MJ) but will be charged -the more difficult task for a battery- with almost 3x compared to 2025. The only relief is that the Battery can be 35 instead of 20 kg. It is not trivial task. However, it's difficult to understand why this could not be tested on the bench.

The battery density is very low compared to today's EVs. I did the math and it comes to 55kwh/kg. While current EVs are in the high 100kwh/kg to low 200kgh/kg.

[AR3-GP]

Regarding the Battery, the new regulations are not trivial.
They have the same energy window (4 MJ) but will be charged -the more difficult task for a battery- with almost 3x compared to 2025. The only relief is that the Battery can be 35 instead of 20 kg. It is not trivial task. However, it's difficult to understand why this could not be tested on the bench.

The battery density is very low compared to today's EVs. I did the math and it comes to 55kwh/kg. While current EVs are in the high 100kwh/kg to low 200kgh/kg.

It's not a 4MJ battery. It's a battery with a maximum SOC delta of 4MJ on the track. The true capacity is much greater otherwise it would never be able to do half of the season as required by the regulations.

[Farnborough]

Is it possible for FIA to disqualify honda for being such a bad manufacturer and force enginer supplier to provide engine to aston ?. I dnt think aston being lapped by new enntrants does F1 brand any good and they might become safety risk. Donkey racing in race of horses. I fully blame aston for this debacle. They did not learn from mclaren at all. Honda is good enough for 100cc bike and biat engines, they dnt deserve to be in F1. We dnt need GP3 manufacturers here.

Clearly you've arrived on here with all but nil knowledge of Honda, it's engineering capability, it's interaction within many facets of motorsport .... yet choose to fictionalise and spew derogatory comments about a highly competent company.

The forum doesn't need your views in this form.

[Abarth]

Regarding the Battery, the new regulations are not trivial.
They have the same energy window (4 MJ) but will be charged -the more difficult task for a battery- with almost 3x compared to 2025. The only relief is that the Battery can be 35 instead of 20 kg. It is not trivial task. However, it's difficult to understand why this could not be tested on the bench.

The battery density is very low compared to today's EVs. I did the math and it comes to 55kwh/kg. While current EVs are in the high 100kwh/kg to low 200kgh/kg.

Well, it is not about capacity (energy) density, but power density. You may do the math again, maybe with an EV with 80 kWh and 360 kW charging power (4C, which is a lot).
It's a huge task.
But again, it's also something which can tested easily on a bench.

[Abarth]

On another note, it doesn't look as it's the ICE which lacks performance..

[venkyhere]

Is it possible for FIA to disqualify honda for being such a bad manufacturer and force enginer supplier to provide engine to aston ?. I dnt think aston being lapped by new enntrants does F1 brand any good and they might become safety risk. Donkey racing in race of horses. I fully blame aston for this debacle. They did not learn from mclaren at all. Honda is good enough for 100cc bike and biat engines, they dnt deserve to be in F1. We dnt need GP3 manufacturers here.

I think you are missing the forest for the trees. Honda have won multiple WDC/WCC with their PU, so it's not a case of 'bad manufacturer'. Yes, this time (like in 2015), something is indeed wrong. None of us, writing walls of text here in this thread, know anything about what the actual issue is.
As I posted before, we are simply going in circles regurgitating and digesting the same thing over and over again. There is no difference between typical social media and this forum, when it comes to such 'speculative' topics. Again, why don't we simply WAIT until the 1st race weekend ? IMHO completing the race will itself be a ray of hope for the team. Only if they keep DNF-ing for 2-3 weekends on the trot, does FIA, FoM & AMR need to have a 'sit-down'.