I’m sort of gambling on Lawson and Lindblad not bringing home the bacon.
My guess is that Lawson will either be better or worse than everyone expects.
Wow - you don't mince your words! 🙂
Wow - you don't mince your words! 🙂
I'd have loved to see Alonso have a proper challenge for race wins again before he retires. I expect AM and Honda will resolve things but probably not soon enough for Nando 😐
Bummer, similar or maybe worse than the problems they had with Mclaren in 2015.
A bit from the press conference here:
I've worked with Japanese companies before, and I think making addressing it in public this way will go down like an absolute lead balloon...hope they can get it sorted quickly before it goes completely sour
I'll bet Alonso is proper seething inside...
They're obviously setting up the narrative for an early exit at the weekend. Turning up to avoid penalties and stopping due to 'driver welfare...'. 'GP2, GP2...' 😁
Sounds like a chassis problem to me rather than engine.
All engines vibrate - you're not telling me a tiny V6 turbo is vibrating more than a 3.5ltr V12 from the olden days!
Wouldn't surprise me if the team is up for sale within a year or two.
As Bernie says 'You can't buy F1 titles'.
All engines vibrate - you're not telling me a tiny V6 turbo is vibrating more than a 3.5ltr V12 from the olden days!
Hope I'm not teaching granny to suck eggs here... but a V12 is naturally balanced (hence the Rolls Royce £1 coin trick), whereas a V6 is not, therefore needs balance shafts/counterweights/dampers etc.
The problem is, it's rigidly fixed to the chassis in a racing car so everything comes right though.
I think they would be very optimistic thinking Lance Stroll will actually finish the race anyway, I'm sure the car will be wrecked way before vibrations are an issue 🤣
Alright - another comparison - they used to have a tiny V6 engines knocking out nearly 1500bhp back in the 80s bolted onto aluminium chassis and coped with vibration then! 🙂
I'm another in the camp doubting that this is a 100% Honda issue. That engine/powertrain will have had a massive amount of time in the dyno, monitoring for things like vibrations. We know Williams essentially dyno'd their whole car, so I assume AM did too? To get through all of that but only find this issue on track is very odd
What multi21 said. There were similar issues when they switched from V10s to V8s - I remember Williams losing a rear wing or something due to the vibrations of the new engines. However, the other teams seem to have managed to deal with it so it seems like it's an installation issue - the chassis will need to damp the vibrations.
We know Williams essentially dyno'd their whole car, so I assume AM did too?
I think that's the issue. The other factory teams could dyno the engine installed in the chassis whereas Honda dyno tested the engine in Japan and AM developed the chassis in the UK, apparently without doing dyno tests with the engine installed in the car.
The B-Sport channel on YouTube has a coupe of short videos on the Honda subject.
According to B-Sport Honda have chosen to put the MGUK next to the battery unit to have a slimmer package that is required for the deep undercut side pods that Aston are using. This placement is different from what was previously allowed and possibly different from other engine manufacturers. The MGUK placement is causing vibrations and rubbing on the battery casing which is wearing away and could cause a nasty failure if the battery casing was to fail. Hence Aston are able to run the car but not for long for fear of wearing a hole in the battery casing. It's not any easy part to manufacture with a long lead time so having plenty of spares is going to take a while. So Aston can't just bung another one in many time over the weekend to keep the car running.
According to B-Sport Honda have chosen to put the MGUK next to the battery unit to have a slimmer package that is required for the deep undercut side pods that Aston are using.
So basically size zero revisited.
Hence Aston are able to run the car but not for long for fear of wearing a hole in the battery casing.
A few layers of Duck tape should sort it.
According to B-Sport Honda have chosen to put the MGUK next to the battery unit to have a slimmer package that is required for the deep undercut side pods that Aston are using. This placement is different from what was previously allowed and possibly different from other engine manufacturers. The MGUK placement is causing vibrations and rubbing on the battery casing which is wearing away and could cause a nasty failure if the battery casing was to fail. Hence Aston are able to run the car but not for long for fear of wearing a hole in the battery casing. It's not any easy part to manufacture with a long lead time so having plenty of spares is going to take a while. So Aston can't just bung another one in many time over the weekend to keep the car running.
But surely a genius like Newey would know this and not design a car that allows this rubbing to happen.
According to B-Sport Honda have chosen to put the MGUK next to the battery unit to have a slimmer package that is required for the deep undercut side pods that Aston are using.
But which came first:-
a) Honda choosing to place the MGUK there so it allowed for a deep undercut?
b) Aston dictating they wanted a deep undercut leading to the new compromised layout?
But surely a genius like Newey would know this and not design a car that allows this rubbing to happen.
The PU design is on Honda. This sounds like Honda just didn't understand how brutal the flexing and vibrations are out on track compared to running on a dyno.
(One of my favourite anecdotes is that the Saturn V designers used to set off explosive charges in the rocket exhausts to simulate the vibrations and shocks in real world rocket launches - they just didn't have modern simulation tools back then so just tested to destruction the old fashioned way.)
The PU design is on Honda. This sounds like Honda just didn't understand how brutal the flexing and vibrations are out on track compared to running on a dyno.
I’m not going to believe that Honda designed the pu and Aston the rest of the car in splendid isolation from each other and they just assumed it would all fit together with no issues. It doesn’t stand any credible thought that 2 organisations with people as experience as they have would not have held detailed conversations over the winter right trough the design process.
I think the big issue is the Honda team that built the engine that powered the Red Bull for the last seven years isn't the same team that built this engine.
A lot of skill was lost when they 'withdrew' and cut down to a skeleton crew just to maintain the previous hybrid spec engine.
I’m not even going to they and explain what’s going on here. My main takeaway is that they’ve screwed up these regs so badly that they’re now having to tweak them race (well quali to be exact) on race
I was about to renew my subscription to F1TV. I think I'll go for the month-to-month option rather than annual as I sense a complete shit show is about to happen (and maybe Bahrain and Saudi get cancelled...) 🤷
"I was about to renew my subscription to F1TV. I think I'll go for the month-to-month option rather than annual as I sense a complete shit show is about to happen (and maybe Bahrain and Saudi get cancelled...) "
Im doing the same thru Apple TV (in the US)
If the season turns out to be bobbins I will cancel and watch Youtube Highlights. I thought >85% of the races last year were dull AF, irrespective of the 3way battle.
P1 proving these cars are actually ok to watch and listen to. Better than last year I’d say.
I bet there’ll be loads of folk all over anti social media apologising for suggesting they will sound like milk floats and go not much faster……… idiots.
Not watched any of the practice sessions yet, but this just popped up in my FB feed. Aston properly throwing Honda under the bus - zero chance that Aston didn’t know Honda’s staffing position - and if they didn’t who the hell is running that team!!!
Aston have become the new team to wish for an implosion - while Red Bull crack on with new found support!! 🤣🤣
https://twitter.com/autosport/status/2029813397332631947?s=46
Sporting regulations Article B2.5.4 has been revised.
Bottas won't start with his grid penalty from the end of 2024
Last year's pole: 1:15:09. Piastri: 1:19:72 in FP2, and the Aston martin is doing 1:24:62!
zero chance that Aston didn’t know Honda’s staffing position
This is fundamental to the way Honda work and always have done. They see F1 as a training place for their new young engineers. I was reading in Motorsport Magazine about their history, and every time they come to Formula One, they seem to start from scratch with young engineers with little or no experience.
Their approach is to develop something, run it to see what fails, do a clear root cause analysis to understand the fundamental problem, do something to address that fundamental problem, release it, run it to see what fails.......
This ends up with a really well developed, well thought out solution; however, it takes time, more time than Formula One allows.
Aston martin is doing 1:24:62!
big oof
Not watched any of the practice sessions yet, but this just popped up in my FB feed. Aston properly throwing Honda under the bus - zero chance that Aston didn’t know Honda’s staffing position - and if they didn’t who the hell is running that team!!!
bigger oof
That Newey quote is silly IMHO, obviously he's under a lot of pressure but why is he throwing Honda under the bus publicly at this stage of the season? He should just be saying "there are some PU issues that unfortunately didn't come to light until the car hit the track, we're working with Honda to resolve them".
I’m not even going to they and explain what’s going on here. My main takeaway is that they’ve screwed up these regs so badly that they’re now having to tweak them race (well quali to be exact) on race
God these PU regs are so cack. 😂
The annoying thing is, even youtubers were doing the maths and pointing these issues out a year or more ago.
Hopefully they figure it out, otherwise we're going to be hearing a lot of boring talk from the commentators about recharging, lift&coast, deployment etc on the tracks where there is limited braking zones.
That Newey quote is silly IMHO, obviously he's under a lot of pressure but why is he throwing Honda under the bus publicly at this stage of the season? He should just be saying "there are some PU issues that unfortunately didn't come to light until the car hit the track, we're working with Honda to resolve them".
Because this was supposed to be his time to shine and prove how amazing he is. Now he has a lemon on his hands and if it cant be his fault then it has to be Hondas. Im quite sure the PU has alsorts of problems, but we dont know if that is all of it or if the car is part of the problem as well
There will also be some real cultural differences to work around between Aston & Honda (compared to 'Honda' of the last few years which was actually a mostly British team of engineers in Milton Keynes). When I was at McLaren during the last Honda era we had several training courses explaining the way their society and businesses operate and it was really interesting but you could see why things like this could easily happen. Mistaking a response to a question as being the answer, when in fact they were confirming that they understood the question and the answer would follow once it had been discussed with their superiors to agree the response was one of the most common issues. And the timescales in this going up and down the team hierarchy will not have been useful in F1-speed development.
My colleague worked at Prodrive alongside the Subaru engineers some years ago, the engines would arrive sealed and nobody was allowed to work on them other than the engineers sent from Japan. They wouldn't last even one day on the stages without blowing up but there was 'no problem' with them and any questioning of this was met with complete denial and hostility. In the end they had to resort to coming back in the evenings and rebuilding the new engines overnight once everyone had left in order for them to run reliably.
I'm not saying this to mean that it is Hondas fault at all, just that when people say "they can't both have been working in isolation on/unaware of these issues" I can very much believe that could be the case due to lack of information sharing & communication issues in both directions.
Because this was supposed to be his time to shine and prove how amazing he is. Now he has a lemon on his hands and if it cant be his fault then it has to be Hondas.
From what I've read, Newey deliberately focused on getting the basic architecture of the car (and PU) right, without worrying too much on short-term reliability and performance. The idea is that, if the underlying architecture is good, the car will be fast once it's fully developed. I have no doubt that Newey will be able to develop the AM car to be competitive, as long as Honda can do the same. So, the big question is whether the Honda is basically a decent engine that needs development or whether they have made fundamental mistakes in the architecture. That won't be obvious until the second half of the season or next year.
I'm a very casual watcher these days, I watch the highlights on YouTube and that's about it. But I saw somewhere that Lewis Hamilton is worried that it will be difficult for viewers to see/understand what's going on, and I think he's right. E.g. I've seen clipping mentioned a few times - I don't know what that is. And I did see the difference between boost mode and overtake mode somewhere, but I couldn't confidently say what it is now. I could go and find out obviously, but my interest is currently going in the opposite direction.
I've seen clipping mentioned a few times - I don't know what that is.
It's been a part of F1 for over a decade, basically the cars run out of battery to deploy before the end of a straight so they lose power and start slowing down. The difference this year is that more of the total power comes from the battery so the slowing effect is more severe. Drivers used to moan about it, then the engineers etc got on top of it and the only noticeable effect for viewers was the red lights flashing on the back of the car.
Given time I expect something similar will happen with these regs - optimal solutions will emerge and the issue will be less obvious.
Don’t worry, they’ll be yet another explanatory graphic to take up a further 30% of your TV screen space and make the coverage look even more like a computer game.
I'm a very casual watcher these days, I watch the highlights on YouTube and that's about it. But I saw somewhere that Lewis Hamilton is worried that it will be difficult for viewers to see/understand what's going on, and I think he's right. E.g. I've seen clipping mentioned a few times - I don't know what that is. And I did see the difference between boost mode and overtake mode somewhere, but I couldn't confidently say what it is now. I could go and find out obviously, but my interest is currently going in the opposite direction.
This is what I was alluding to above, it's boring to explain and too complicated. And nothing is shown on the screen when it's happening either.
Clipping = for one reason or another the battery is not delivering maximum power, so the total output is dropping. Usually it just means the car either stops accelerating or slows very slightly.
Super clipping = not only is the battery not delivering power, it's actively taking energy (up 335BHP) from the petrol engine output and storing it in the battery for the next straight. This can be very noticeable, it slows the car a lot.
You can see super clipping at turn 8/9 here. Listen from :33 seconds in, the revs rise, rise, rise, normally then start to fall around :42. This is when the car slowing down because it's diverting power to the battery instead of the wheels.
https://twitter.com/F1/status/2029890990484640056
The other annoying thing is the long lift+coast into the corner, when the drivers used to really brake late and attack that. So yeah, not my favourite.
It was partly tongue-in-cheek but Ted Kravitz did bring that up with some engineers/Team Principals etc. in the testing coverage and suggest that the new flashing lights on the rear wings (and mirrors?) might actually be good to use as a display for when cars are using Boost or Overtake modes because otherwise it's all a bit unclear what is happening.
I think in BTCC they do this, the side number panel lights up when they're using their boost (although that is only 3? times a race so a bit simpler to keep track of).
Otherwise you'll see one car going a bit slower or faster than another and not really know whether one has a problem, got a worse exit from the corner or is using more power.
I think a lot of the discussion about Boost, Super Boost, over Boost Clipping, Super Clipping, and whatever is just because it's all new. Fairly quickly, I think we'll get to understand what it all means and what the effect is and what actually matters.
If you think about trying to explain to a total newbie all the nuances of last year's Formula One, what was happening, who was doing what and why, it would sound massively complicated and really difficult to explain. This is the same just for people who have actually been interested in Formula One for a while.
It's been a part of F1 for over a decade, basically the cars run out of battery to deploy before the end of a straight so they lose power and start slowing down. The difference this year is that more of the total power comes from the battery so the slowing effect is more severe.
Ultimately, all the energy comes from the ICE, the battery just harvests some of that and allows it to be used at the optimal time over the lap. AIUI, the maximum fuel load is the same, so the cars start the race with roughly the same amount of chemical energy as before, but the PUs will be less efficient at using that because the old engines used the turbo to harvest exhaust energy to charge the battery. So, the new cars have less total useable energy across the race, but increased ability to redistribute that across the lap. They have partially addressed this energy deficit by going to a lower drag design, but it's more efficient to redistribute energy from the end of straights (where aero drag is extremely high) to other parts of the lap, hence the clipping. Every circuit will have a different optimal deployment map, so the challenge for teams is to find that. The entire purpose of these rules is to emphasize efficiency, not running flat out lap after lap. Clipping is a feature of the new rules, not a bug.
It's been a part of F1 for over a decade, basically the cars run out of battery to deploy before the end of a straight so they lose power and start slowing down. The difference this year is that more of the total power comes from the battery so the slowing effect is more severe.
Under the previous rules, the MGU-H was harvesting waste energy all the time from the turbo so clipping was never really slowing the car much.
Now we've lost the MGU-H, that waste energy is just being lost out the exhaust instead, and the energy to charge the battery is being taken away from driving the wheels; so not only is the electric motor not giving power, but it's actively sapping it from the engine.
Well I've watched FP1 now and I think they look perfectly fine on track.
The real test will be Sunday of course - if they race well all this talk of super clipping will be quickly forgotten.
Speaking of different deployment maps for different circuits, the FIA tried to remove a strait mode zone overnight but the teams revolted because it would have meant starting from scratch on the deployment map and car setup with only FP3 to figure it all out.
https://www.the-race.com/formula-1/f1-team-driver-revolt-straight-mode-u-turn-australian-gp/
Verstappen bins it on his first quali lap!
Looking forward to Max charging through the field tomorrow.
Fingers crossed that Hadjar has broken the curse of the TB 2nd seat
That Mercedes pace was ominous
Good things:
Amazing qualifying performance from Linblad, and Hadjar.
Cadillac showing Aston Martin how it's done
Bad things:
Changing down at the end of the back straight doesn't look/sound good.
Brundle thinks that if you finish, your chances of being in the points are pretty high.
Hoping this season doesn’t become a Mercedes procession. Early days yet of course.
I’ve just seen Antonelli’s FP3 crash - seriously impressive that he was able to do any running at all in qualifying. Even the mechanics all appear to be up for this season!
Hoping this season doesn’t become a Mercedes procession. Early days yet of course.
Or at least kimi is allowed to race and not made to follow princess george round
If he does we will have George doing a button as some time champion and hoping everyone forgets it was the car and not the driver that was the deciding factor
Fingers crossed that Hadjar has broken the curse of the TB 2nd seat
I'm hoping it lasts. So far, Hadjar has looked like the real deal. Thing is, Perez looked half-way decent earlier in his Red Bull years. From what I remember, the first Red Bull ground-effect car was a bit overweight and a bit understeery, which suited Perez so he looked competitive with Max. They trimmed a lot of weight out of the front of the car and developed the aero, which made the rear of the car less stable. It was faster, but only Max could exploit it so Perez ended up looking pretty second rate, as did Lawson and Tsunoda. Hopefully the same thing won't happen to Hadjar.
So it looks like this season is going to be a two horse race, between Mercedes doing all they can to be as fast as possible and the FIA doing all they can to nobble them
If I were Mercedes, I’d be making sure that in the race and the next few qualifying sessions, my margins of victory were as small as possible…
I’ve just watched the highlights - it looks like Norris did his final quali lap with a broken front wing. It was in contact with the ground on the LHS as he crossed the S/F line.
Mclaren must but very short on spares to be just taping up Lando's car rather than fitting a new wing.
it looks like Norris did his final quali lap with a broken front wing.
Yeah, almost certainly a result of hitting Antonelli’s cooling fan. Evidently duct tape has its limits.
I see Ferrari have dropped the inverted wing.
Race should be interesting while everyone’s still figuring out their deployment strategies.
I see Ferrari have dropped the inverted wing.
Will be interesting to see if they abandon it completely or it's a circuit to circuit thing, and also whether other teams try it.
I see Ferrari have dropped the inverted wing.
I thought that was a spoof part to get headlines and to distract the other teams. I never thought it was going to be a real thing to use in races.
I see Ferrari have dropped the inverted wing.
I thought that was a spoof part to get headlines and to distract the other teams. I never thought it was going to be a real thing to use in races.
I expect it to be raced. With the development time constraints and the budget cap I wouldn’t think anyone would waste time on a spoof part
Shame about the Red Bull cock up, would have liked to see how quick they are with Max at the helm. They looked quick, although I think Mercedes has pace in hand.
There's more to that car than just engine, it looked very well sorted already.
Audi also a nice surprise & good debut qualifying for Lindblad.
Piastri gets his 2026 season off to a cracking start!
Just waiting for the Piastri conspiracy theories to kick off - McL obviously favour Norris so they must have sabotaged him somehow.
**Early Morning Shit-Show Sweepstake**
How many cars won't actually make it off the grid at the start when lights go out!?
I'll go x3. 😀
Failed on that one!! 🤣
Huge field spread after only 6 laps!
Apart from Piastri’s crash, they couldn’t have asked for a better first 10 laps for the new regs
Bonkers!
Looks like they can follow closely and overtake where they want.
Was that Ferrari being Ferrari, missing a pit opportunity.
Ferrari being Ferrari again - missed chance again?
Yes, yes it is Ferrari strategist asleep. Ffs.
I would imagine Williams are very disappointed with their pace. Not making any progress.
If the Mercs have to pit it could end up looking like a master stroke… which everyone will still assume was a mistake
Lawson being shown up by the rookie. Got to be his last year in F1 - if he sees out the season.
I enjoyed that - went a bit flat at the end. But normal for an F1 race.
5 Brits in the top 8....
I enjoyed that - went a bit flat at the end. But normal for an F1 race.
My exact thoughts too. Fizzled out but otherwise good
Twitter is hilarious this morning - people properly losing their shit!! 🤣🤣
Mainly because it wasn’t as shit as the F1 ‘analysts’ had predicted so they’re pushing new agendas as to why it was shit to justify their last 3 days output.