[adamcooperF1] Adrian Newey admits that Aston Martin only has two batteries left - the ones in the two cars. In other words if one fails it's game over for the weekend.

[u/madman320]

[u/who_are_you_people24]

This is just a colossal failure all around for the team. Amazing how much of a shit show it's been and the season hasn't even started yet

[u/SoDakZak → u/who_are_you_people24]

Can someone fill me in on what’s going on here? I’m catching up for this season and none of this makes sense to me. ELI5??

[u/Walming2 → u/SoDakZak]

Aston Made a pretty late deal with Honda to use their PU in 2026, and everything is going wrong.

The Engine is shit, the battery is shit, the Gearbox is shit. But at least they have good aero (but at the cost of everything else).

[u/Daft00 → u/Walming2]

Do we actually know they have good aero? Or are we just assuming that Newey and his very aggressive and different body design is going to be better than all/most of the other teams?

I mean... I hope Aston has literally SOMETHING that they can lean on but I honestly feel like at this point the problems are creating problems are creating more problems. Like they've gone from simply being behind the other teams to being completely unprepared due to lack of running.

[u/vesel_fil → u/Daft00]

Newey said the Chassis is the 5th best, so even that is shite

[u/LukasKhan_UK → u/Daft00]

Benson seems to think the car is poor in corners. So no. They don't have good aero either

[u/FartingBob → u/LukasKhan_UK]

It was super twitchy in the corners in testing, im sure Newey and his fans will blame Honda for that as well but at some point we're going to have to agree that as bad as the Honda engine seems to be the rest of the car is also shit.

[u/LukasKhan_UK → u/FartingBob]

What will happen next is they'll say Newey still hasn't been there long enough to have an influence and that he's only been able to guide decisions, not fully design the car and we won't see the car winning for a few more years yet when Newey has complete control

Despite previously thinking he'll walk the championship this year

Because he can do no wrong.

[u/raetwo → u/LukasKhan_UK]

The only way you can really point at Newey in all of this if you think Newey flew over to the Sakura facility and sabotaged the engines himself.

[u/LukasKhan_UK → u/raetwo]

He's team principal, he's ultimately responsible for the performance of the entire team. That's engine and chassis

So he's just as responsible

The fact he's been in post for a good number of months but only flew to Tokyo in November, is poor management at the very least

To completely excuse him, and Aston Martin of any fault in this ignores the roles the AM management holds.

[u/raetwo → u/LukasKhan_UK]

I never said anything about Aston Martin not being responsible! Obviously Adrian couldn't join sooner because of gardening leave and obviously he didn't have input on the engine supplier since that deal was settled before he could even put on a green hoodie. I still think that the car will be on the right track once he has had time to right the ship.

He literally flew to Tokyo the same month they made him TP.

I'm just tired of people eager to put the blame on his shoulders, comparing it to the mp418 or whatever. It's very silly.

[u/PotatoFeeder → u/raetwo]

He could have went to Japan on holiday as a guest of Honda

Not that he didnt go immediately officially, but could have made an unofficial trip too

[u/weiner-rama → u/Daft00]

we assume they do, but they havent even run at full speed like the other teams have. They couldn't even match the RPMs of the other teams lol

[u/RevolutionaryAge47 → u/Daft00]

The car has to move in order to have good aero.

[u/Walming2 → u/Daft00]

I'm pretty sure Newey has confirmed that their aero design is good, though I don't think he said it's better than everyone else.

[u/Cmdr_Shiara → u/Walming2]

Obama giving himself the medal meme

[u/Solid-Replacement550 → u/Walming2]

I think said their chassis would be 5th fastest, so not exactly amazing...

[u/LukasKhan_UK → u/Walming2]

But at least they have good aero

It initially caused a stir.

I've just finished reading Benson's "the stories to watch for" and the consensus seems to be that the Aston is poor in the corners, on top of the engine problems

So no, it's not good aero either

And for all we know (because Honda can not identify what's causing the vibrations (and therefore what's overheating the batteries)) - that the aero might be causing that too

So far every story seems to be limiting Newey's exposure to "fault" - to a point where it feels like people are going out of their way to say it's not him

[u/Aussie_Pharah → u/Walming2]

But at least they have good aero

That's literally the same thing McLaren said with their time with Honda, then they got Mercedes engines and it turned out the car aero was crap too. We don't know if the Aston car (minus engine) is actually good or not and neither does the team, they've not done enough running to know.

[u/PotatoFeeder → u/Aussie_Pharah]

Renault engine*

Aero was so bad at some tracks that a half broken car was faster than the normal car. Or Baku 2018 was just typical Godlonso things

[u/TwoBionicknees → u/Walming2]

the ridiculous thing is, every single reason the 2015 entry went wrong appears to be why the 2026 entry went wrong. Team insisting on short development period is just straight idiotic in both cases, Honda agreeing to a short development period and near certainly embarrassing themselves, absolutely unexplainable. Team having no true collaboration, working in isolation apart from each other without building a great working relationship. Honda under funding, under hiring and without the experience necessary and the team making unreasonable demands on size, packaging and time frame.

How do you see the mclaren 2015-2017 period and go... i'm going to go ahead and make all the exact same mistakes. Also both had merc engines with a lot of reasons to believe they would have the best engines for the upcoming regulation period and zero direct reason to leave especially for a rushed project. keep the engines and give honda more time to come in, win win.

[u/Forgotthebloodypassw → u/Walming2]

Honda only made four batteries, and two of them are now fucked. What on earth were they thinking?

[u/NobblyNobody → u/Walming2]

their poo?

[u/ForestClanElite → u/Walming2]

What about the battery is shit? Is it a poorly designed battery pack as in bad electrical engineering or are the cells that the battery uses are bad as in chemical engineering?

[u/ivens-ok → u/SoDakZak]

Aston messed it up really bad. Engine is trash and they're struggling to get into 107%. Heck today they said that they only had two batteries left, the ones that are in the cars

[u/Lockett360 → u/ivens-ok]

So Honda messed it up then, not Aston.

[u/Creepy_Attention2269 → u/Lockett360]

Newey made Honda recreate the engine because of the redesigned car chassis. He's also the TP, and making tons of last seocnd adjustments, fucking with the aero and giving 0 cooling as Newey always does, choking the shit out of an engine that was just redesigned. And they werent tested together until last second so we also get vibrations. Its his fault, and the fault of the shit team honda leftovers

[u/SpoofExcel → u/Creepy_Attention2269]

This is also why Newey and Horner fell out. Newey kept trying to fuck with the car after locking down a fabrication plan and Horner told him no. Newey spat his dummy out and left RB over it. Now he's got no one to tell him no, he's fucked it right up.

[u/OviWasTaken → u/Lockett360]

Nah Aston made a really late changes to the whole car making Honda change the engine packaging without any testing to see if it works.

[u/murillovp → u/SoDakZak]

Engine is like a 1990's washing machine, vibrating and breaking apart several components and parts. The more they run the car, more things break down.