2026 Aston Martin Aramco Formula One Team

[TyreSlip]

Kyle felt the top rear wishbones sitting on the rear wing pylon was inefficient and came with a large weight penalty. Only time will tell if the aerodynamic benefit comes to fruition.

[Seanspeed]

30hp is a huge deficit. No amount of aero wizardry is closing that power gap.

That was the gap Renault had compared to Ferrari from 2010 to 2013.

10-15 at most. Not to say renault was the best, but it also wasn't absolutely awful.

It was slightly down on power, but when it came to fuel efficiency, compactness, cooling requirements and driveability, it was very good. Red Bull didn't win despite the Renault engine, it was a genuinely great overall engine by 2010.

[sucof]

That was the gap Renault had compared to Ferrari from 2010 to 2013.

10-15 at most. Not to say renault was the best, but it also wasn't absolutely awful.

It was slightly down on power, but when it came to fuel efficiency, compactness, cooling requirements and driveability, it was very good. Red Bull didn't win despite the Renault engine, it was a genuinely great overall engine by 2010.

No one runs near their full potential yet....
The engines are all turned down, they most likely run with lots of fuel, and the aero is at a design stage 6 months old.
The latest aero alone will make cars at least a second faster than they are now, engine likewise, if not more, also it was too cold for the tyres, and add to that no one ran programmes that truly focused on qualifying runs...

[Badger]

10-15 at most. Not to say renault was the best, but it also wasn't absolutely awful.

It was slightly down on power, but when it came to fuel efficiency, compactness, cooling requirements and driveability, it was very good. Red Bull didn't win despite the Renault engine, it was a genuinely great overall engine by 2010.

No one runs near their full potential yet....
The engines are all turned down, they most likely run with lots of fuel, and the aero is at a design stage 6 months old.
The latest aero alone will make cars at least a second faster than they are now, engine likewise, if not more, also it was too cold for the tyres, and add to that no one ran programmes that truly focused on qualifying runs...

Some of that is cynical bordering on the conspiratorial if you ask me. If you are running six month old aero and not turning up the engine you are not learning anything useful about your package. You need to push the engine over many laps to prove reliability and performance. You need to bring relevant aero to know that your development is working. Teams have other ways of hiding pace that don't jeopardise the point of testing.

[sucof]

It was slightly down on power, but when it came to fuel efficiency, compactness, cooling requirements and driveability, it was very good. Red Bull didn't win despite the Renault engine, it was a genuinely great overall engine by 2010.

No one runs near their full potential yet....
The engines are all turned down, they most likely run with lots of fuel, and the aero is at a design stage 6 months old.
The latest aero alone will make cars at least a second faster than they are now, engine likewise, if not more, also it was too cold for the tyres, and add to that no one ran programmes that truly focused on qualifying runs...

Some of that is cynical bordering on the conspiratorial if you ask me. If you are running six month old aero and not turning up the engine you are not learning anything useful about your package. You need to push the engine over many laps to prove reliability and performance. You need to bring relevant aero to know that your development is working. Teams have other ways of hiding pace that don't jeopardise the point of testing.

Not if you think about it.
They run an old aero config, but they can still see how that correlates. Which is the most important knowledge. How the basic concept works, which is also super important. Only if you know these can you develop further in the hope that it will yield actual results. So this is kinda even more important than the latest aero. If you can verify the listed basic things, only then can you move forward and produce a fast car.
On the engine side, running around 80-90% is similar, then you will know 80-90% of what you needed to know.
They probably turned up for a lap or two the engines during testing, but I guess, that part they can know from the bench testing too.
And they have the monocoque and the suspension already settled, they had to test those too. Those also do not need constant push laps to understand.
Add to that, it is more important to complete the test programme than try a push lap, where the car breaks down... or crash like RB did and loose the rest of the days.
And on top of all these, aero is the part of any car that is the easiest to copy. You might never able to copy things in the engine or under the hood, but aero can in a few months. So you will delay all your latest and nastiest stuff for the last test or just till Melbourne.

[Badger]

No one runs near their full potential yet....
The engines are all turned down, they most likely run with lots of fuel, and the aero is at a design stage 6 months old.
The latest aero alone will make cars at least a second faster than they are now, engine likewise, if not more, also it was too cold for the tyres, and add to that no one ran programmes that truly focused on qualifying runs...

Some of that is cynical bordering on the conspiratorial if you ask me. If you are running six month old aero and not turning up the engine you are not learning anything useful about your package. You need to push the engine over many laps to prove reliability and performance. You need to bring relevant aero to know that your development is working. Teams have other ways of hiding pace that don't jeopardise the point of testing.

Not if you think about it.
They run an old aero config, but they can still see how that correlates. Which is the most important knowledge. How the basic concept works, which is also super important. Only if you know these can you develop further in the hope that it will yield actual results. So this is kinda even more important than the latest aero. If you can verify the listed basic things, only then can you move forward and produce a fast car.
On the engine side, running around 80-90% is similar, then you will know 80-90% of what you needed to know.
They probably turned up for a lap or two the engines during testing, but I guess, that part they can know from the bench testing too.
And they have the monocoque and the suspension already settled, they had to test those too. Those also do not need constant push laps to understand.
Add to that, it is more important to complete the test programme than try a push lap, where the car breaks down... or crash like RB did and loose the rest of the days.
And on top of all these, aero is the part of any car that is the easiest to copy. You might never able to copy things in the engine or under the hood, but aero can in a few months. So you will delay all your latest and nastiest stuff for the last test or just till Melbourne.

Correlation isn't a constant, it can change as your concept develops. RB under the previous regulation is a good example of this, great correlation turned to poor correlation as the car got more complicated. Bringing closer to date components will yield more relevant data than trying to correlate 6 month old components. In that time the car could have changed completely.

Running the engine at 80-90% will not yield 80-90% of the knowledge you need, that's insane. That's like saying "if an athlete runs a 12s 100m in practice he's 80% of the way to running below 10s in the real race". Almost all the engineering time and money is spent on trying to squeeze out those last few HP from the engine. That's also the bit you need to verify in testing, to see that the engine can actually run reliably at full power in the car. The sooner you verify that the better, because if there is an issue you are on the clock to fix it before homologation and the beginning of the season. There's no time to waste "sandbagging" on things that are life-critical to your team's success.

[venkyhere]

There is so much talk of 'not running full potential' , 'conservative engine mode' , 'fake aero bits' etc in all team threads. The fact of the matter is, teams try to do 'as much as possible' by bringing 'as many parts as possible' for shakedown/testing events in such a 'fully revamped formula'. They want to know not just about what they have, but mostly to form a crude idea about what 'development path' to take over the next few seasons, when they sweep through different PU modes, different cooling settings, different tyre pressures, different ride heights etc etc. Hence every hour of the 9 days of 'test time' is super important. The focus has to be more (more than ever before) on themselves than 'fooling others'.

Turn up the engine to 11, run with low(high) fuel load to sim quali(race), test the limits of the car and still produce a 'sandbagged laptime' so as to not show their hand fully (if you have been watching the FP2/FP3 sessions by Mclaren & Verstappen over the past 2 years (most recent example), you will know how they do it).

[Luscion]

[GrizzleBoy]

Watching Jenson having to say nice things about Lance Stroll is going to make amazing television. Can't wait.

[Leon Kennedy]

There is so much talk of 'not running full potential' , 'conservative engine mode' , 'fake aero bits' etc in all team threads. The fact of the matter is, teams try to do 'as much as possible' by bringing 'as many parts as possible' for shakedown/testing events in such a 'fully revamped formula'. They want to know not just about what they have, but mostly to form a crude idea about what 'development path' to take over the next few seasons, when they sweep through different PU modes, different cooling settings, different tyre pressures, different ride heights etc etc. Hence every hour of the 9 days of 'test time' is super important. The focus has to be more (more than ever before) on themselves than 'fooling others'.

Turn up the engine to 11, run with low(high) fuel load to sim quali(race), test the limits of the car and still produce a 'sandbagged laptime' so as to not show their hand fully (if you have been watching the FP2/FP3 sessions by Mclaren & Verstappen over the past 2 years (most recent example), you will know how they do it).

The Bahrain tests will be fundamental, I don't know if anyone has already used more aggressive engine modes and that will be a very important part. Remember Ferrari in 2022? They did some brilliant tests, with many laps, but then as soon as they pushed the engine to Catalunya and Baku, they had problems. We also need to see how Honda's development is progressing, because the one presented was not the final version.

[SealTheRealDeal]

So, did they do the filming run yesterday?

cancelled.

Honestly, may as well do any filming day test runs at Silverstone, that way they have all the resources of their factory on hand.

[bigblue]

Honda old-boy!

[TyreSlip]

Does that mean Pedro de la Rosa left the team?

I thought Jenson enjoyed commentary more.

[OnEcRiTiCaL]

Does that mean Pedro de la Rosa left the team?
I can't see why Button joined to AM .
I thought Jenson enjoyed commentary more.

[selvam_e2002]

May be Alonso jumping ship to Alpine again next year..... wild guess....