Official F1 Pre-Season Testing Thread 2026 - Bahrain

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CaptainRAVE said:
Barely even a GP2 car at this point. Even if they don’t retire they’ll be a few laps down.
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Would love to know what the actual issue is, whether it’s just the gearbox or whether that’s one of many.

I suppose to their credit, testing went significantly better than McLaren-Honda. Will be good to see how they compare against Audi in race trim but Audi seem leagues ahead of them.
 
Will be interesting to see how much time Newey and Co are given to work on things at Aston, does Stroll have the patience to wait it out and see if it turns out OK in the long run?
 
The issues with Honda aren't even something the likes of Newey can overcome. Huge reliability issues on top of very poor performance.
 
Mesai said:
Would love to know what the actual issue is, whether it’s just the gearbox or whether that’s one of many.

I suppose to their credit, testing went significantly better than McLaren-Honda. Will be good to see how they compare against Audi in race trim but Audi seem leagues ahead of them.
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You are making a brand new in house designed gearbox and a brand new engine supplier (This Honda engine isn't anything to do with the old Honda which is essentially a Ford engine in name now).

The likes of Mercedes have 30 years in the game and Ferrari 70 years.

Honda are essentially starting from scratch like they did before as all their key people most likely still work for RB under the Ford brand. It is all well and good having the resources and tools but not having the people to use them is worse.

Hindsight is a wonderful thing but when Renault announced they were pulling out of F1 engines that is where Aston should have ploughed the cash into as you already have a great F1 brand with decades of experience that most likely just needed a cash injection/new leadership to make great again.

This is also why I hate a ban on testing because this Honda unit will be a dud for several years now whereas in the "old days" they would have caught up by Europe or at least ironed out the worst issues.
 
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Mesai said:
Would love to know what the actual issue is, whether it’s just the gearbox or whether that’s one of many.

I suppose to their credit, testing went significantly better than McLaren-Honda. Will be good to see how they compare against Audi in race trim but Audi seem leagues ahead of them.
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I've not really heard anything good or bad about Audi?! Here's hoping they can be in the mix.
andy_mk3 said:
The issues with Honda aren't even something the likes of Newey can overcome. Huge reliability issues on top of very poor performance.
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Other than that, Honda nailed it. :D
 
andy_mk3 said:
The issues with Honda aren't even something the likes of Newey can overcome. Huge reliability issues on top of very poor performance.
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Aren't the issues more with the in-house gearbox rather than the Honda power unit? There was a battery issue but that's only one of the problems they've had and Merc had to replace their power unit too so that isn't outside the range of expected problems. Also, power unit issues can result from poor packaging by the chassis manufacturer, as we've seen before.
 
adam cool dude said:
You are making a brand new in house designed gearbox and a brand new engine supplier (This Honda engine isn't anything to do with the old Honda which is essentially a Ford engine in name now).

The likes of Mercedes have 30 years in the game and Ferrari 70 years.

Honda are essentially starting from scratch like they did before as all their key people most likely still work for RB under the Ford brand. It is all well and good having the resources and tools but not having the people to use them is worse.
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Honda are far from a small car company who are only just discovering motor racing.

They have a long history in racing with several iterations in F1 where they've proven they can build World Championship winning engines. The whole RBPT from last year is still Honda IP and I doubt Honda's entire engine division have emigrated to Milton Keynes.

Like I said, it would be good to know what the actual issues are. I've heard it's the gearbox, but have also heard that the PU can't charge at the max 350KW. Surely the gearbox is one of those things that can be tested on the dyno - obviously there are different stresses in the real world but that seems like a huge miss.
 
Mesai said:
I've heard it's the gearbox, but have also heard that the PU can't charge at the max 350KW. Surely the gearbox is one of those things that can be tested on the dyno - obviously there are different stresses in the real world but that seems like a huge miss.
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The two big standouts from testing for Honda's issues seemed to be gearbox related. They had the one instance of Alonso going from 5th to reverse mid corner and it killing the entire car on the spot - and then they had the one where they went from gear 4 to gear 60 (?!) according to telemetry and Stroll just rolling to a stop.

I wonder if the gearbox is the most obvious issue but it's just part of a bunch of other problems right now. Melbourne will 100% just be an extended test for them at this rate.
 
t2na said:
and then they had the one where they went from gear 4 to gear 60 (?!) according to telemetry and Stroll just rolling to a stop.
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I think the sensor they use to determine which gear it's in is based on rotation speed or something like that, so when I saw the telemetry of it going to 60, definitely makes you think the internals just liquified.

Cars might be slower this year but that extra torque is no joke.
 
It would be nice to see the sport get a bloody nose. Many people responsible for decisions around it need to be fired, and banned from every motorsport related field for life.
They made cars giant and heavy, then after complaints reduced the size by a smidge (they are still massive and heavy). Not satisfied with that then reduced the engine power, and have them getting most of their speed from a 1990’s 6v Tyco RC car battery. Can we just go back to F1 being genuine pinnacle of motorsport? These cars have not been that for many years, current ones are peak en****tification.
 
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Emlyn_Dewar said:
It would be nice to see the sport get a bloody nose. Many people responsible for decisions around it need to be fired, and banned from every motorsport related field for life.
They made cars giant and heavy, then after complaints reduced the size by a smidge (they are still massive and heavy). Not satisfied with that then reduced the engine power, and have them getting most of their speed from a 1990’s 6v Tyco RC car battery. Can we just go back to F1 being genuine pinnacle of motorsport? These cars have not been that for many years, current ones are peak en****tification.
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As great as that sounds safety will be compromised and many manufacturers wouldn’t be interested. Most of them want some sort of hybridisation to push their own hybrid vehicles.
 
I'm all for the hybrid tech tbh, trying to harvest every ounce of energy from the powerplant by not ****ing away all the energy as brake heat....leading the way with tech, that's what F1 is about for me.

The problem has been the racing being absolute toilet to watch because of the massive cars and aero......going to have to reserve judgement to see how the rule changes translate to actual racing on the track. Might be quite interesting seeing the different strategies the drivers take throughout a lap with their energy management.....

We'll find out soon enough....
 
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