2026 Aston Martin Aramco Formula One Team

[diffuser]

https://f1ingenerale.com/f1/f1-clamoros ... australia/

Separation from Honda is being considered

I already said this 2 weeks back. F1 is super competitive. Honda is 3rd class and should be fired and banned from F1. Their incompetence can wipe out aston from F1. Staying at back will dilute brand and valuations and all big investments they made.rest of manufacturers are not sitting idle. In race of horses no one bets on donkey to win a race. Hope can not be strategy. Its fine bad decision got made , leadership lies in correcting it asap.

Little dramatic I think. I kind of agree that this is Honda's last kick at the can. As for Aston, it's just a little blip in the road. AMR GP don't get their value from their PU Manufacturer. If it doesn't workout with Honda, just switch to another and keep on trucking. If they announce tomorrow that they're switching to AUDI next year, they wouldn't even lose any advertisers.

F1 team gets it's value from:
1 - Having a F1 team license.
2 - How well "F1" in general are doing.
3 - What comes with the license, assets equity etc.
4 - advertising revenues
5 - How well a team does in any given year will effect their advertising revenues little. The impact will get larger the more consecutive years the team stays low in the standings. Right now they're on a high from the Newey signing. I believe many of the advertisers have sighed multi year deals.

[mvfad]

Wasn't it pretty obvious to everyone that the "Honda" engine Red Bull has been using for the past few years wasn't actually a Honda engine? That the RBR engine only improved after the numerous hires of professionals from Mercedes' engine division, who had nothing to do with the Japanese manufacturer?

So I don't understand this surprise regarding Honda. To me, this was always obvious. Or am I mistaken? To me, it doesn't make sense that they signed with Honda "wanting" the RBR engine.

Besides, Newey worked at RBR, so he knew things better than anyone.

[GoranF1]

I still wonder if they can crank everything up for atleast one fast lap tomorrow to see what this car can do, because the car looks so much different than anything else....that new FW is insane.

[diffuser]

Wasn't it pretty obvious to everyone that the "Honda" engine Red Bull has been using for the past few years wasn't actually a Honda engine? That the RBR engine only improved after the numerous hires of professionals from Mercedes' engine division, who had nothing to do with the Japanese manufacturer?

So I don't understand this surprise regarding Honda. To me, this was always obvious. Or am I mistaken? To me, it doesn't make sense that they signed with Honda "wanting" the RBR engine.

Besides, Newey worked at RBR, so he knew things better than anyone.

That is factually incorrect. The RBR PU it used over the last few years was whole solely developed by Honda R&D in Japan. Nobody else.

[FNTC]

I see on a rerun on Sky F1 now that Sky has Jenson Button there, even if he is employed by Aston. He was being diplomatic saying they just have to find a solution to the vibration issues. I am thinking Newey's drastic comments and Lances comments about feeling like being electrocuted in an electric chair is coming from Lawrence Stroll being livid about the situation. I dont think they would do so on their own accord. But it's not helping the situation by hanging Honda out to dry in the media, so it makes me feel like they are considering trying to get another engine manufacturer, at least for 2027.
When japanese users here say they are putting me on ignore just for writing "If Honda were competent..." you can see how the culture works, so the Stroll and Newey comments seem more like a bridge burning exercise, and that they are using the driver's safety card to potentially break the contract.

[zoroastar]

This is without exaggeration becoming worse than 2015. How is that even possible? TWICE! (Or thrice if you want to add 2017).

If you remember the 1994 CART/Indy situation with the HRX V8, well, this is the carbon copy of that situation.

That iron block V8 was also not able to keep its internal components placed in the particular housing called "racing engine silhouette wrap" because in its early childhood it was fascinated by hand grenades, therefore it tried to emulate them continuously...

The Honda engineers then picked up every little shards of metal from the track surface to "prevent other manufacturers to acquire the KNOWLEDGE" of that engine. No one ever wanted to be in a 1000 mile radius of that s#itty V8...

Then came 1995 with the HRH and the first wins, and from 1996 Honda conquered the US soil.

There is a philosophy of Honda called Success From Failure. Dunno... For me failure means "development prototype". And when something is finished and ready then it belongs to the racetrack. But not sooner. And it's like a swarm of hungry mosquitoes follows Honda. Where are the healthy human decisions?

It seems that Honda is the only racing engine constructor who simply can not comprehend that you should ONLY go to a duel when you have working weapons. The opponent brings a pistol, Honda brings a piece of iron to hammer & saw & bore something distantly reminiscent of a firearm (later at least a knife, even later a needle), but in the heat of the duel, the motions are clumsy, the blows of the hammer are weak and nothing comes out that we can can call victorious.

In this kind of situation the company even calls its fans to "come, watch us!" and keeps wondering that the fanbase (with some purchasing power, mind you) can not imagine that this company was able to believe to win that duel with a nonfunctional piece of metal...

Then the disgraced company starts to file another piece of metal - with broken arms, one eye, amputated legs and collapsed lungs - because of the opponent's working pistol - and something magical emerges: a masterful weapon which is feared in the whole world. But why they can not spare the ill-/mis-/dis-/non-/un-parts of the equation?

Somehow this major suckage is defining Honda. Or it IS Honda, dunno. But if I were in their place, I'd look for truly detailed self-reflections from my past to learn from it because I wouldn't want to repeat the re-learning phases. They only losing time, money, efforts, resources and most importantly, face value. Fanbase. Sales. Survival. If they self-ID themselves with constant patching, rebuilding, their choice. But no smart kid grabs a glowing red piece of metal twice with bare hands... Even when they hastily try to fabricate a weapon from it...

Let's not forget that Newey requested Honda to make changes tot he PU package after he came on board and Honda had to redesign major pieces. So, yes ALL Hondas fault. They are under performing, they admitted as much. But for so many to simply ignore other circumstance is disingenuous.

yeah this is one of the most competitive sports on earth. obviously it was assumed that it wouldnt cause the whole floor to fall out from under the engine team to request a change that could be the difference between them winning or being stuck in the midfield. nobody hires newey to do the status quo, and newey got where he is by pushing designs that nobody has thought of. lets be real here though, they wouldve had a bad power unit right now whether they did this or not. maybe newey assumed that they had somebody other than newhires working on the thing

[LookingGlass]

So to summarize:

1. Honda pulls out in 2021 when they're winning and then jumps back in 2023 so they're already a year behind and limited by engine budget cost cap that the others didn't have for 2021-2022 (Honda's fault)

2. Honda rips up that team that won with RB and sends them to other parts of the company, and this new team is 70% inexperienced to F1 (Honda's fault)

3. AMR decides they're going to become a works team including building their own gearbox for the first time, instead of going the Cadillac route and remaining a customer team until they have everything else together (AMR's fault)

4. AMR management doesn't find out about Honda's personnel issues until NOVEMEBER 2025 (AMR's fault)

5. Newey's late join + late wind tunnel (AMR's fault)

6. Newey's uncompromising design forcing Honda through redesigns (AMR's fault)

7. Honda not properly pushing back against those requests (Honda's fault)

8. Seems like no one was communicating or doing proper component/integration testing. They don't know where this vibration issue originates or how the vibrations are amplifying through the chassis hard enough to literally rip apart the battery. (everyone's fault)

9. Everyone is pointing fingers instead of acknowledging the fundamental issues within the organization and taking responsibility. (everyone's fault)

Holy sh*t this is actually worse than Williams 2019. At least that car *ran* and completed races.

https://www.the-race.com/formula-1/stru ... challenge/

Not sure why AMR is painting this like they got blindsided. Cowell has apparently been making trips to Honda's facility in Japan since October 2024 according to this article back in March of last year.

[tomek108]

But if there were no vibrations, than everything would be ok. They would probably be in the midfield with great upside potential. Probably no one saw vibrations of this scale before runing the car so to say that bith sides are incompetent is little harsh.

[continuum16]

I wonder if the much-rumored Cowell-Newey split, IF it happened, emerged simply from the fact that one guy understands engines and the other understands chassis, and they had competing interests. And AN has a stake in the team, so he (or someone on his behalf) “pulled rank” so to speak. Goodbye Cowell.

We are obviously deep into speculation territory. But it would be surprising to find out, in some memoir or podcast years later, that in spring 2025 Newey wanted changes to the engine packaging that Cowell opposed, and that was that. Newey got his repackaged engine but Honda still failed to deliver. Nobody is faultless. Hopefully someone will make a good documentary about the management of this and teach it in schools in the future.

[continuum16]

So to summarize:

1. Honda pulls out in 2021 when they're winning and then jumps back in 2023 so they're already a year behind and limited by engine budget cost cap that the others didn't have for 2021-2022 (Honda's fault)

2. Honda rips up that team that won with RB and sends them to other parts of the company, and this new team is 70% inexperienced to F1 (Honda's fault)

3. AMR decides they're going to become a works team including building their own gearbox for the first time, instead of going the Cadillac route and remaining a customer team until they have everything else together (AMR's fault)

4. AMR management doesn't find out about Honda's personnel issues until NOVEMEBER 2025 (AMR's fault)

5. Newey's late join + late wind tunnel (AMR's fault)

6. Newey's uncompromising design forcing Honda through redesigns (AMR's fault)

7. Honda not properly pushing back against those requests (Honda's fault)

8. Seems like no one was communicating or doing proper component/integration testing. They don't know where this vibration issue originates or how the vibrations are amplifying through the chassis hard enough to literally rip apart the battery. (everyone's fault)

9. Everyone is pointing fingers instead of acknowledging the fundamental issues within the organization and taking responsibility. (everyone's fault)

Holy sh*t this is actually worse than Williams 2019. At least that car *ran* and completed races.

https://www.the-race.com/formula-1/stru ... challenge/

Not sure why AMR is painting this like they got blindsided. Cowell has apparently been making trips to Honda's facility in Japan since October 2024 according to this article back in March of last year.

I think it’s becoming clear that pretty much anything said or done by anyone at AMR before Newey arrived was pretty much discarded. From senior staff to chassis and engine designs. If it happened before April 2025 it didn’t happen.

Whether that was Newey’s decision or not is unclear and, to a large extent, irrelevant. But it does provide an easy reference point in time.

[zoroastar]

most of hondas past partners have talked about the problems that they have needed to overcome when dealing with them. even teams that were really successful with honda had to overcome the language and distance barriers from working with a company based in japan. redbull got them after honda had built up a british base, so basically mclaren suffered through the hard years to let redbull reap all the benefits. i find it kindof difficult to imagine that honda offered up a total picture of their working situation on these visits. i cant see honda advertising that 70% of their experience had moved to other areas of the company, and that they were tackling this project with junior members of their team. maybe they did, but its not a shining example of dedication to a partner. andy cowell was impressed with their facility, but he wouldnt know the specifics of their work unless honda offered up full disclosure. knowing how reluctant honda have been in the past, would they ever ask for his help? it seems to me that november came around, and thats when the whole truth came out. people can blame who they want, and obviously do, but no one is more to blame than the company that was actually responsible for building the power unit.

[restless]

I still remember readng here in this forum, years ago (21?22? ), that many members of Honda F1 team were reassigned to other projects, and "new blood"/team will work on next engine.
Read here, written by a Honda employee.
And so many people keep repeating "Oh my god, how could they do that, i had no idea"
What.
The.
F.

If I knew it, how could Newwy/Stroll/Cowell not know it?!

[Sedaxel]

It's not looking good at all. Even so, Alonso said today that they are "much less negative than the media".

Honda seems to have done the development with not experienced engineers. I just hope they're excellent ones (I guess that not every mediocre engineer can be hired by Honda to work at Sakura un these kind of projects).

So I'm forcing myself to have some hope and see if some kind of McLaren miracle happens in the second half of the season.

[diffuser]

I wonder if the much-rumored Cowell-Newey split, IF it happened, emerged simply from the fact that one guy understands engines and the other understands chassis, and they had competing interests. And AN has a stake in the team, so he (or someone on his behalf) “pulled rank” so to speak. Goodbye Cowell.

We are obviously deep into speculation territory. But it would be surprising to find out, in some memoir or podcast years later, that in spring 2025 Newey wanted changes to the engine packaging that Cowell opposed, and that was that. Newey got his repackaged engine but Honda still failed to deliver. Nobody is faultless. Hopefully someone will make a good documentary about the management of this and teach it in schools in the future.

The "good bye Cowell" is not real. it was just a rumor. Cowell, in his own words, is still there and is not planning on going anywhere. There was also suggestion that taking the PU thing on was his suggestion.


If you're working on a chassis and you're Cowell and Newey says doing it this way is better, you're not gonna do it?

[TyreSlip]

It's not looking good at all. Even so, Alonso said today that they are "much less negative than the media".

Honda seems to have done the development with not experienced engineers. I just hope they're excellent ones (I guess that not every mediocre engineer can be hired by Honda to work at Sakura un these kind of projects).

So I'm forcing myself to have some hope and see if some kind of McLaren miracle happens in the second half of the season.

ADUO is the only thing that has me intrigued for the second half of the season. Having been a fan of Alonso through McLaren-Honda, it is hard for me to have any expectations.

It has to be demotivating for the drivers to ride around the track 5 seconds off the pace for the first half of the season.