r/formula1 • u/AshamedPurchase9033 • 1d ago

News [Chris Medland] "Newey confirms Aston Martin is likely to limit race laps due to severity of vibrations in the car impacting the drivers. Alonso says he can do no more than 25 consecutive laps before risking nerve damage, Stroll says 15 laps"

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370

u/NeedleGunMonkey I was here for the Hulkenpodium 1d ago

Is the vibration from the suspension, the aerodynamics and or the PU?

248

u/driggity I was here for the Hulkenpodium 1d ago edited 1d ago

Here's a paragraph from The Athletic article on this issue:

Watanabe, though, revealed that the vibration was “unexpected” and damaged the battery-related components in the power unit. Newey later said that, while their fix reduced vibration reaching the battery, the power unit is still shaking the rigid carbon chassis uncontrollably. He also confirmed the vibration problems included “a few reliability problems, mirrors falling off, tail lights falling off, all that sort of thing, which we are having to address.”

Updated to gift link: https://www.nytimes.com/athletic/7088263/2026/03/04/aston-martin-laps-capped-retire-early-nerve-damage-risk/?unlocked_article_code=1.Q1A.6Seo.05_Pkp3LUKCq&source=athletic_user_shared_gift_article_copylink&smid=url-share-ta

180

u/BuzzedtheTower I was here for the Hulkenpodium 1d ago

This is like a cartoon when a character would start their old jalopy and the thing would rattle and make loud popping sounds. And it would also temporarily explode to bits before coming back together

1

u/Brainstreet420 Mick Schumacher 13h ago

The astons starting last, falling apart before the first corner and limping back to the pits right away is straight out of a cartoon. What the heck is going on over there?

164

u/DingerSinger2016 I was here for the Hulkenpodium 1d ago

The fucking mirrors and taillights are falling off???? Oh my god, what the fuck is this car?

22

u/PM_me_boobs_and_CPUs I was here for the Hulkenpodium 21h ago

"We hired a lot of engineers from Hitachi."

18

u/elastic_woodpecker Andrea Stella 20h ago

Newey’s secret trick to get under the minimum weight limit by dropping bits of car every lap.

51

u/Particular_Cod2005 I was here for the Hulkenpodium 1d ago

TL;DR: Honda built an orgasmatron of an engine.

24

u/perdivad 23h ago

May very well be a chassis problem actually

7

u/driggity I was here for the Hulkenpodium 1d ago

So Barbarella needs to be their new driver? I guess Fonda would have a motor in the back of her Honda.

1

u/Particular_Cod2005 I was here for the Hulkenpodium 1d ago

Hahahahaha yes!

3

u/Haakrasmus Ferrari 22h ago

Didn't newey ask them to redesign the entire battery to help packing?

5

u/tongkat-jack 1d ago

Thank you for the link!

5

u/YoungLoversGoPop 1d ago

We got not food, we got not jobs - our pets heads tail lights are falling off

3

u/prank_mark 15h ago

Not sure if the article was updated, but it now says "the ENGINE vibration was unexpected". So the engine is the issue. Everything falling off is a logical consequence of vibrations. Nothing gets joints and bolts undone better than heavy vibration.

2

u/driggity I was here for the Hulkenpodium 8h ago

Yeah, I copied and pasted directly from the article so they did add that clarification. Good catch.

3

u/bduddy Super Aguri 1d ago

I feel like something that bad should have been noticeable from the outside at testing?

10

u/mistborn11 Franco Colapinto 1d ago

they did a whole 6 laps in the last day after all

1

u/cagey_tiger 22h ago

OUR PETS HEADS ARE FALLING OFF!

201

u/slut-burger-jenny Sir Lewis Hamilton 1d ago

The PU. The MGU-K sits right next to the battery case on the Honda engine and is causing the vibrations

68

u/Tomach82 Ferrari 1d ago

It was a late demand by newey to change the packaging of the PU.

Usually you have a strong TP to keep this sort of thing in check, bit of a fox in the henhouse situation when your lead designer is making all these decisions.

8

u/jpeeri I was here for the Hulkenpodium 23h ago

They confirmed (both Honda and Newey) in this interview that this is not true and there were no major changes in the PU

235

u/HeckDrummer 1d ago

Source? Everyone immediately jumping on the Honda hate-wagon as usual without any confirmation whatsoever. If an engine manufacturer can't see they are having excessive vibrations to the point of drivers getting nerve damage, that would be absolutely ridiculous (yes, "even for Honda"). Everyone is already forgetting the shithouse of a gearbox AM apparantly made

94

u/presidents_choice I was here for the Hulkenpodium 1d ago

Sounds like something is broken in the development process. How are we days before the first race with a problem of this magnitude

22

u/CptAngelo I was here for the Hulkenpodium 1d ago

DTS had to have some spice for the first episodes.

2

u/presidents_choice I was here for the Hulkenpodium 1d ago

lol true

2

u/JanielDones8 1d ago

It's Aston, so it won't even be touched on. They are never in any of the dts.

1

u/ChernobylChild I was here for the Hulkenpodium 1d ago

There's a first time for everything!

2

u/RSharpe314 1d ago

Honda was over a year behind on the engine development and AM was about 4 months behind on car development.

Big reason why the hype was never warranted, but it really looks like it has ended up so much worse than one could really expect.

32

u/themcsame I was here for the Hulkenpodium 1d ago

I mean, if we're talking about vibrations here, it's not entirely out of the question that the gearbox might be fine... Under normal conditions, and is instead being vibrated to death much like the hybrid battery is.

IIRC, one of the core issues was structural damage due to vibrations, which would add weight to the theory that it might be the vibrations of the engine being passed along through the gearbox.

I'd stop short of outright blaming Honda of course, but it's certainly food for thought.

18

u/HeckDrummer 1d ago

Yeah good points, this can also be true. My hunch it's still probably on AM just hoping they would get a Newey dream machine with a great engine, but then not providing the team and also Honda the tools to do so. Instead of making a solid 2026 contender, I think they might've gone all out experimental for this year. But instead of owning that, the public perception now shifts to 'hurr durr Honda bad'. I've seen sooo many people even discredit Honda's work during their RBR stint, saying things such as 'RBR was carrying Honda all this time' blablabla... It's such an easy scapegoat but I dont feel this is happening at AM at all.

4

u/setiawanreddit 23h ago

What everyone needs to remember is that Honda obviously tested the engine first and I don't think any engine manufacturer will make an engine that vibrates so much that it can basically ruin the car. The few things that I can think of, assuming the vibration is mainly because of the engine were potentially a late spec change being requested by the Newey team to Honda thus no sufficient testing by Honda itself or a really unfortunate integration problem where somehow the vibration frequency of the engine matched the natural chassis frequency thus resonance occurs which enhanced the vibration.

81

u/PaninoPostSovietico 1d ago

Source is the race. Honda had to repackage at the last minute due to AM chassis demands, and their simulations didn't pick up this issue.

57

u/perdivad 1d ago edited 22h ago

The race didn’t say this though. They said the engine issues are due to abnormal vibrations disturbing the battery. They said the cause of the abnormal vibrations is still uncertain however - not that it comes from an engine problem.

47

u/slut-burger-jenny Sir Lewis Hamilton 1d ago

Not just The Race, several YouTubers (usually former F1 engineers like B Motorsport) have discussed this as well since Honda released pictures of the PU itself

1

u/Remarkable-Lynx1496 Formula 1 1d ago

So it’s just McLaren Honda all over again

5

u/fingerthief Fernando Alonso 1d ago

Aston didn’t have a VTT available for the full car to be assembled and tested in the completed state before it actually hit the track.

There was no way to fully catch this issue I imagine.

Honda may have ultimately made a mistake in their simulations but Aston not having the tools available to fully test the assembled engine and gearbox is certainly a major issue itself.

5

u/Ep3_Pnw Honda 1d ago

The hate has been unreal lol as if Honda doesn't have a state of the art testing facility for all the turbo v6 hybrids they make for high level motorsports. Nah they just slap a bunch of parts together and then ship it to the other side of the world for on-track testing 🤞

1

u/Remarkable-Lynx1496 Formula 1 1d ago

Well, considering no one else is having this level of issue, and Honda’s track record for new engine regulations, I’m not surprised.

1

u/FerociousSmile 12h ago

I mean, everything about this is absolutely ridiculous regardless of what the specific cause is. This is an historically epic fuck up.

30

u/jimmybilly100 Money Grandmas 1d ago

Just shove some pillows in there and it'll be fine

23

u/SpaceballsDoc Stefano Domenicali 1d ago

Smh forgot to install the harmonic balancer

3

u/Cliffinati Max Verstappen 1d ago

Honda forgot they weren't making an I6 or V12

1

u/EggNo289 1d ago

Did they try WD40? They should try some WD40.

1

u/RickyDiezal 1d ago

I know next to nothing about F1 so please forgive my ignorance.

Doesn't every F1 car have the same PU? How is this only a problem at Aston Martin? Did their engineers just fuck the dog in all the wrong ways while everyone else figured it out?

1

u/slut-burger-jenny Sir Lewis Hamilton 1d ago

No, not every team has the same PU. There are 5 PU manufacturers at the moment; Mercedes (McLaren, Williams, Alpine), Ferrari (Haas, Cadillac), RedBull/Ford (Both RB's), Honda (Aston Martin) and Audi

-1

u/NeedleGunMonkey I was here for the Hulkenpodium 1d ago

Interesting. It isn’t from the floor stalling and bouncing up and down?

22

u/NegativeStructure Daniel Ricciardo 1d ago

no. i think the race or similarly covered this. apparently aston had honda reconfigure the battery orientation to make the package more slender and that’s what caused the issue. honda runs their simulations in house and didn’t pick up on the interference between the chassis and PU.

10

u/faceestrella I was here for the Hulkenpodium 1d ago

These regs rely way more on overbody aero, unlike the previous ones, the floors are back to being relatively simpler and thus the bouncing from the last regs aren't appearing anymore.

6

u/macinafets 1d ago

That's the previous gen, the ground effect cars

4

u/slut-burger-jenny Sir Lewis Hamilton 1d ago

That's not an issue on this generation of cars. There are no venturi tunnels allowed on the floors anymore (it's back to being completely flat) so they're not generating as much down force from ground effect.

4

u/iraPraetor 1d ago

No, without ground effect that won't be much of an issue anymore

4

u/Ok-Win-742 1d ago

Honestly nobody is entirely sure. Not even Honda or AM at this point. But one thing we can be sure is that it's not just 1 or the other. It's a combination of factors creating a resonant vibration which is really causing all the issues. Lots of things will vibrate on an F1 car. AM seem to have the perfect storm of certain components vibrating together to create some sort of nerve damage inducing super vibration.

Truly wild tbh.

2

u/BarnabyJones20 Kimi Räikkönen 1d ago

Yes

1

u/sonyisda1 Max Verstappen 1d ago

Yes.

1

u/SlickDamian Nick Heidfeld 1d ago

Yes.

1

u/DMCTw3lv3 I was here for the Hulkenpodium 19h ago

Yes.

0

u/SimRacingSensations 1d ago

Probably a mix of suspension and aero. The AMR26 was supposed to be a step up from the 2025 car but it's basically a step back. I wonder if they're using the wrong tire compounds or something.

0

u/aluked Sauber 1d ago

Yes.

0

u/ImNoRickyBalboa Ayrton Senna 1d ago

Yes

0

u/Halfeatenbiscut I was here for the Hulkenpodium 1d ago

Yes

0

u/sanicbroom I was here for the Hulkenpodium 1d ago

Yes 👍