But asked if Aston Martin had been aware of the level of the inexperience shortfall when they signed their Honda deal in May 2023, Newey, who joined Aston Martin from Red Bull last spring, said: "No, we weren’t”
What?! That sounds ridiculous. And it goes on to say that AM only figured this out very recently. Given that RB lured many people away from both Honda and Mercedes to build their powertrain it seems obvious to check who at Honda is left to develop the engine from the original team when signing a large, expensive and important contract.
Whatever the truth of it, AM need to have a good working relationship with Honda and whilst it might be convenient to blame them for their technical difficulties, surely it’s damaging a working relationship that should be very close so that it translates into performance on track.
It’s stark. The engine vibrates so violently it is literally shaking the car apart. Any issues with the chassis are undetectable because the car is incapable of running enough to expose them before the components are broken by the engine. The current issue is the batteries are being destroyed by the vibrations. They have only the ones currently installed left. There’s no hiding from it. The engine is horrifically bad. It is the limiting factor at the moment.
AM are the customer, and they’ve been sold unworkable goods. Its their right to attribute their struggles appropriately.
Yes, fair comment. If they have to retire the car because it’s shaking itself and the drivers to the point of failure, questions will be asked. So some of this is getting on the front foot and manage expectations. But I am baffled how how naive AM could be regarding the strength of Honda coming back into the fold as an engine supplier. It’s more likely they were set to struggle than not given they’re essentially in a rebuilding phase having lost personnel to RB.
As you say, the vibration issue is potentially masking any other problems, and Newey seems to think that the chassis is a step ahead of others, but we won’t really know until this is resolved. And the lack of running is doubly punishing in terms of gathering data and insight. I guess I’m just wary because this feels very similar to the McLaren & Honda situation where Honda carried all the blame, only to find that McLaren had other performance issues outside of the PU.
How is that possible? Excessive vibrations should be equally noticeable on a test unit even if not mounted inside a car
I think it’s more the PU is shaking itself apart more specifically. As in the ICE vibrations are damaging the battery. That’s all Honda’s purview. AM might have made a good car and gotten a shit PU from their partner, and that super sucks.
Totally agree with you. Doesn’t look good!
Why is a video about the Australian F1 GP geoblocked? I am literally on the train home from the grand prix circuit.
Stroll was so behind the pace today. He ran through the Melbourne walk because he was so late arriving. It didn’t improve after that.
His FP2 performance fell outside the 107% threshold, which will be a huge problem if it’s not fixed by tomorrow.
All Sky’s videos are unfortunately geoblocked to the UK. It would be fine if most of their written article were not littered with them.
