Temporada F1 2026 🏎

[McHouserphy]

Dónde han metido toda la parte trasera???    
Y los pontones???    

Esperemos que no sea una "tostadora" de aquellas que también hicieron famoso a Newey    

[LaraCroft]

https://x.com/formuladirecta/status/2016929228734800363?s=48&t=1sVRGm3iU53gwBxoqnW_ag

[McHouserphy]

 

[llumia]

Lo veo (mal, porque la foto es una  ), pero no lo entiendo...   

AM26 , esta tarde en Montmeló:


Esa "barriga" en el morro??...
Esas tomas de aire con la cuchara abierta por arriba??...
Tiene las aletas famosas de los McLaren de los 2000 en los laterales del "intake" ??
Eso de los pontones   , son aperturas de salida de flujos clientes??
Esa suspensión trasera...  ... no lo entiendo (alomojó es que no se ve)

si que parece "No ve d'oso"    

1. Sobre la "barriga en el "morrro": Hay que recordar aquellas comparativas de morro pelícano vs. no pelícano, donde con CFD (2D) validamos las hipótesis de partida, que una disminución de la sección libre al flujo, por la ecuación de continuidad,para conservar el flujo volumétrico (caudal), la velocidad debe aumentar y si la velocidad aumenta, un balance de energía mecánica, nos va a indicar que se va a producir una caída de la presión. En su día lo validamos empleando CFD :risitas:

2. Aletines en la zona de la toma de aire: Efectivamente, aquellos McLaren los incorporaban, aunque no sé si los que los introdujeron fueron los del equipo BMW F1, son acondicionadores de flujo, para mejorar la "calidad" del aire que llega al alerón trasero.

3. Suspensión trasera: Efectivamente se observa con dificultad, pero da la impresión, que los tirantes superiores de la misma, en lugar de estar anclados al chasis, los están al pilar que soporta el ala trasera.

[llumia]

New Aston Martin red flags fourth day of F1 testing

Aston Martin brought the penultimate day of Formula 1 testing at Barcelona to an early end on Thursday as a problem for Lance Stroll after just four laps left his new AMR26 stranded on track.

The team had worked all day to get its 2026 car out for the first time, with Stroll completing a first installation lap with an hour of running left.

But after later managing just four laps at slow pace, his car came to a halt in the final sector on his fifth tour and he stopped in the run-off area near the pitlane entry.

There was no immediate explanation for what caused the stoppage, but Aston Martin will be hoping it is a minor issue that can be resolved so it can get a full day's running done on Friday.

While Stroll's stoppage brought out the only red flag of the day, Aston Martin was not the first squad to hit trouble.

McLaren's Oscar Piastri found himself stranded in the garage for the afternoon session as his squad worked on finding a fix to a problem with its MCL40.

"Unfortunately a few issues today," said Piastri afterwards.

"We had a fuel system issue which cut our day a bit short but I know the team is working really hard to get that fixed to get us back out for as many laps as we can tomorrow."

The troubles for Aston Martin and McLaren were in contrast to the valuable mileage that both Mercedes and Ferrari managed over the course of the day.

Mercedes continued its impressive form, as George Russell set a new benchmark time for the week with a lap of 1m16.445s in the afternoon as his squad began to ramp up the pace of the W17.

That effort meant he edged out team-mate Kimi Antonelli at the top of the timesheets at the end of the day by 0.636 seconds.

With Piastri unable to improve from his morning effort and ending the day fourth in the standings, it was Ferrari's Charles Leclerc who ended up the closest challenger to Mercedes.

Leclerc set a best lap of 1m18.223s as he completed 85 laps in total – adding to the 89 laps that team-mate Lewis Hamilton had managed in the morning on his way to sixth in the standings.

Arvid Lindblad was fifth fastest for Racing Bulls, with team-mate Liam Lawson ending up seventh.

The other car running was Sergio Perez in the Cadillac, who completed 66 laps with a best lap of 1m21.024s.

Mercedes has now completed the three days it is allowed to run, while a host of teams are planning to get their final day of running done on Friday.

This includes Red Bull, which has not been able to return to the track since Isack Hadjar crashed heavily at the final corner late on Tuesday.

Thursday times
1. George Russell (Mercedes) 1m16.445 (78 laps)
2. Kimi Antonelli (Mercedes) 1m17.081s (90 laps)
3. Charles Leclerc (Ferrari) 1m18.223s (89 laps)
4. Oscar Piastri (McLaren) 1m18.419s (48 laps)
5. Arvid Lindblad (Racing Bulls) 1m18.451 (47 laps)
6. Lewis Hamilton (Ferrari) 1m18.654s (83 laps)
7. Liam Lawson (Racing Bulls) 1m18.840 (64 laps)
8. Sergio Perez (Cadillac): 1m21.024 (66 laps)
9. Lance Stroll (Aston Martin) 1m46.404 (4 laps)

https://www.the-race.com/formula-1/new-aston-martin-red-flags-fourth-day-of-f1-testing/

[llumia]

Best times and total mileage for every F1 team and driver at Barcelona

Mercedes' prolific running means it has concluded its Formula 1 testing at Barcelona already having completed considerably more mileage than any other team.

An incredibly productive three days at Barcelona for both George Russell and Kimi Antonelli ended Mercedes' week at 500 laps exactly – more than 2300 kilometres of the Spanish Grand Prix venue.

Teams can run on three of five days from Monday to Friday and Mercedes wrapped up its allocation on Thursday having also run Monday and Wednesday.

The next-busiest team, Racing Bulls, ran the same schedule and has also ended its test with 319 laps completed.

But Ferrari is likely to have the second most productive test after Mercedes as its two days of testing, having only started on Tuesday, have already yielded 297 laps.

At the other end, Aston Martin's arrival late in the day on Thursday meant it managed just four laps before stopping on-track.

Other teams lacking mileage going into the final day are new works team Audi, new entrant Cadillac, and reigning world champion McLaren after a fuel system problem on Thursday.

Laps completed by team
Team           Laps        Km
Mercedes      500    2,328.50
Racing Bulls  319    1,485.58
Ferrari           297    1,383.13
Haas             196     912.77
Red Bull        185     861.55
Alpine           185     861.55
McLaren        121    563.50
Cadillac         110    512.27
Audi               95     442.42
Aston Martin   4       18.63

This is obviously reflected in what each engine manufacturer has achieved this week.

Mercedes is well clear of Ferrari while new manufacturer Red Bull Powertrains has had an impressive first showing with the two Red Bull teams.

But Audi's having an underwhelming first F1 test despite prioritising reliability and mileage with the form of its initial package – and Honda's engine has had the most minor of shakedowns in the Aston Martin.

Laps completed by engine manufacturer

Engine         Laps     Kilometres
Mercedes     806      3,753.54
Ferrari          603      2,808.17
RBPT            504      2,347.13
Audi              95         442.42
Honda             4           18.63

Mercedes is not only the busiest team at Barcelona this week. It has also been comfortably quick, as much value as that holds at this stage of testing.

George Russell and Kimi Antonelli have traded fastest times this week, with both the only drivers to go below 1m18s - and Russell even setting a 1m16.445s.

Monday pacesetter Isack Hadjar is still third quickest so far, but is 1.7s slower than Russell.

As this is still such an early stage of testing, and some drivers have not had much mileage, the field spread is abnormally large.

Even discounting Lance Stroll's installation lap 1m46.404s there is a nine-second gap from Russell to Gabriel Bortoleto, who only managed a limited amount of running on Monday before a technical problem ended Audi's day.

Newcomer Cadillac is currently 4.6s off the pace, level with Audi and 1.6s off the next team – but it is no surprise to see such a strong correlation between the number of laps a driver has completed and where they are on the unofficial testing leaderboard.

Fastest times
George Russell       1m16.445s
Kimi Antonelli        1m17.081s
Isack Hadjar           1m18.159s
Charles Leclerc       1m18.223s
Lando Norris          1m18.307s
Oscar Piastri           1m18.419s
Lewis Hamilton       1m18.654s
Liam Lawson           1m18.840s
Franco Colapinto    1m19.150s
Pierre Gasly             1m19.297s
Ollie Bearman         1m19.314s
Arvid Lindblad        1m19.420s
Max Verstappen     1m19.578s
Nico Hulkenberg    1m21.010s
Sergio Perez           1m21.024s
Esteban Ocon         1m22.456s
Valtteri Bottas         1m25.789s
Gabriel Bortoleto    1m25.434s
Lance Stroll             1m46.404s
Fernando Alonso     No time

Laps completed by driver
George Russell     265
Kimi Antonelli      237
Arvid Lindblad     167
Isack Hadjar         158
Charles Leclerc     155
Esteban Ocon      154
Liam Lawson        152
Lewis Hamilton    142
Franco Colapinto 118
Sergio Perez          77
Lando Norris         76
Nico Hulkenberg   68
Pierre Gasly           67
Oscar Piastri          48
Ollie Bearman       42
Valtteri Bottas       33
Max Verstappen    27
Gabriel Bortoleto  27
Lance Stroll            4
Fernando Alonso   0

https://www.the-race.com/formula-1/best-times-and-total-mileage-for-every-f1-team-and-driver-at-barcelona/

[llumia]

Gary Anderson's verdict on the real 2026 McLaren F1 car



McLaren's 2026 Formula 1 car has finally hit the track at Barcelona. As expected from a pre-season test behind closed doors test, pictures of the real car are limited.

However, we are still able to pick out a few pointers from what we've seen so far.



The front wingspan profile of the mainplane leading edge and the flap trailing edge, highlighted with the light blue lines above, are fairly benign. It doesn't change shape quickly across its span. I'm a fan of this as it reduces the potential of crossflow when the pressures on the under surface and top surface change quickly. This type of concept will produce a more consistent flow structure to the rest of the car coming along behind.

Also, although fairly difficult to see, the profile under the nose looks like it is fairly V-shaped - the thinner red highlight line being the breakpoint on the side of the nose, and the thicker red highlight being what looks like the lower floor section of the nose.

This opens up the area under the nose, giving the central section of the front wing more clearance to the nose, allowing better quality and more consistent airflow to the central part of the underfloor through this section.



However, it's under the nose in this area where it all gets a bit more exciting and different. McLaren has these vanes coming down from that surface. I will christen them 'snowplough' vanes. I have put the edge detail in different colours: yellow, green, blue and red going rearwards. All of them look like they have a slightly different profile.

If they're V-shaped where they attach to the nose surface, they could be spilling airflow outwards prior to it getting turned outwards by the V-shape connection between the floor and the underneath of the chassis further rearward. The lower outer corner could also be to generate vortices, which could reenergise the airflow that actually goes underneath the leading edge of the underfloor.

Whatever they do, I'm pretty sure that a few other teams will be looking closely at it very soon in CFD.

By having three slot-gap separators per side between the front wing's second and third elements (light blue highlight), and two between the first and second elements (white highlight), I would assume McLaren will back off two elements for its low-drag mode (dubbed straight mode this year).



he front wing endplates are nicely sculpted, very three-dimensional and McLaren has this fairly serious horizontal fin mounted on the outer surface, which I have highlighted with a yellow ellipse.

This fin will help direct the airflow down into what is called the tyre squirt area, the area where the rotating tyre forces the airflow around its contact patch on the track surface. If allowed to go around the inside, it disrupts the airflow to the rest of the car.

The objective is to force as much of it as possible around the outside; these red arrows below show what I mean. That flow will then join up with the airflow coming through the tunnel in the lower footplate of the endplate, helping seal the underside of the wing, which will improve its performance. That airflow will then be pulled around into the void behind the front tyre.



We can also see that the bargeboards are now more elaborate than on the render version shown on Monday. These horizontal vanes will help extract airflow from the bargeboard footplate.

The original style of bargeboard that the FIA believed it was proposing was to instigate inwash. However, from what I have seen so far, most teams have found a way past that and are now creating outwash.

Quite a few of the teams have a similar appendage on the endplates and similar treatment to the bargeboard area. So I'm keen to see where the FIA stands as far as these concepts are concerned. They clearly have an influence on outwash.



The inlet of the front brake duct (red ellipse) shows a lot more detail; it's divided up into areas to vary the cooling across the internal parts that need different levels of cooling. Last season, McLaren was initially the leader in this style of cooling detail and it helped it keep control of the tyre temperatures front and rear. When the penny dropped, some of the other teams caught up fairly quickly.

The inner surface of the brake duct, highlighted above in yellow, creates a wall to contain the airflow spilling off the front tyre, which is highlighted with the purple arrows. Managing this flow reduces the negative effect it would have on the downforce-producing devices coming along behind.



As for the front suspension, the forward pickup is highlighted in dark blue, and the rear leg is highlighted in light blue. The inboard height difference is what gives you the degree of anti-dive and with this height difference, it's a lot of anti-dive - probably even more than last year.

What I believe is the front trackrod is highlighted in yellow and on the other side, highlighted with the green arrow, is what I think is the forward leg of the lower wishbone. I can't really see the rear leg of the lower wishbone to comment on its influence on the overall dive characteristics of the front suspension, but it can have a significant influence.

Anti-dive is great to support the car when you have braking torque going through the suspension system, but as you come off the brakes and that torque reduces the car's ride height will get back to where it should be for the speed and downforce level you are carrying. That means that the front of the car could be moving more just at corner entry and the difference between turning in on the brakes and not being on the brakes could be significant.

We know that last year, around mid-season, McLaren modified its outboard front suspension pickups to give Lando Norris more braking and steering turn-in feeling. It seemed to work, but as it wasn't considered to be a performance advantage, just a driver-feel improvement, team-mate Oscar Piastri didn't use it.

As you never unlearn anything, I'm sure McLaren will have optimised that package to work with this level of anti-dive and both drivers will start the season with the package.



As for the rear end, the overall suspension layout is not dissimilar to last year, with a top wishbone forward leg (dark blue line), rearward leg (light blue line), lower wishbone front leg (green line), pushrod (red line) and driveshaft (shroud, pink highlight).

The brake duct inner surface, with the yellow highlight, is there to contain the airflow spillage highlighted with the purple arrows coming off the rear tyre.

McLaren does have some small louvres on the floor just in front of the rear tyre; they are highlighted with the orange ellipse. Again, these feed into the rear tyre outward tyre squirt to manage the airflow around the tyre contact patch.

This is a new season with very different regulations for both the chassis and power unit compared to last season, so all of the top teams and probably a few others will think right now that this is their big opportunity to claim top spot and knock McLaren off its perch.

From what I have seen of the top four, yes, they all have come up with something slightly different. The interesting thing is, who has got it right? It's going to be in Melbourne before we see any indication of that and, even then, it will still be early days - with plenty of time to see who can develop at a faster rate and who can take the right direction.

https://www.the-race.com/formula-1/real-2026-mclaren-f1-car-gary-anderson-verdict/

[llumia]

Newey's 'extreme' Aston Martin - Gary Anderson's first reaction



Having just seen the first images of the 2026 Aston Martin, there's no question it's an Adrian Newey Formula 1 car! Even without seeing the detail, you can tell it's extreme, aggressive and all of those other words you can use for a car that pushes to extremes.

Concept-wise, it looks like it's on the limit. The front and rear suspension appears to be pushrod, and the front top wishbone is very high and has a very wide base for its inboard pick-up points.

The rear upper wishbone also looks like its inboard pick-up points are very high and the lower rear wishbone looks very low. However, I'd need to see more shots from different angles before I can go into too much detail.

You could also say it has a 'zero' sidepod concept, and then some. That's not so much in terms of width, but in terms of depth, it's so slim I'm even surprised there is room for a radiator in there. The intake is high and letterbox shaped and the exit is fairly well forward in the engine cover sides and I would say 'brutal'. However, some of that is because the engine cover behind that opening is undercut to the extreme.

As for the sidepod itself, it's effectively an extreme double floor. This means the cross-sectional area between the wheels going from front to back will be smaller than the others that I have seen. That will mean a lot less airflow displacement as the car passes through it  - which in turn should reduce the drag level. This could be very beneficial under these regulations.

Adrian is always very good at working out the right compromises when it comes to creating the most performance from a rules package. So with the energy demands of these cars and the value of low-drag in making best use of that, perhaps he's decided to go all-in on that?



There also appears to be the return of the 'horns' on the side of the airbox. It's difficult to see in detail, but they could be rollover bar supports allowing the airbox intake to be more open. Also, beside the driver's head there are some vertical turning vanes to help control the airflow direction in that area.

There is also a larger-than-most undercut between the bottom of that intake and the top of the driver's headrest. I suppose that could be the reason for the 'horns', but it's difficult to see how big those horns and fins are.

It does look like it might be 'different', to say the least, and that's from front to rear.

But then again what else would you expect from the 'pencil' of Adrian Newey?

The first sight of the car has whetted everyone's appetite and I'm looking forward to going over the detail when we see it.


https://www.the-race.com/formula-1/gary-anderson-on-neweys-extreme-first-aston-martin/

[GoVal]

Adam Cooper @adamcooperF1 · 1min

'@alo_oficial on his first day in the @AstonMartinF1 AMR26: "It was good. Definitely excited to be back in the car after the winter. For us, it's the first day. I know some of the teams did filming days or shakedowns at the beginning of January, and then the whole week here in Barcelona, but for us, it was really the very first day. So I think we had a positive one, 60-plus laps, and the car is responding well. So first day, and more to come. Especially the last I think two weeks has been very, very intense, the factory trying to have the car ready, and we just made it to Barcelona in the last two days. So a tremendous effort from from everyone. I think it was phenomenal, the last 48 hours."

[GoVal]

Algunos análisis del AMR26.


Virutas de Goma™ @VirutasF1 · 21h

Los ingenieros de varios equipos han estado analizando las fotos del Aston Martin AMR26, y han llegado a varias conclusiones interesantes. La mayoría son teóricas, o preguntas que dejan en el aire, pero son análisis llamativos

Ahí vamos (+)

Si empezamos de delante y hacia atrás, lo primero que reseñan es que no se aprecian los actuadores del flap delantero. En el resto de coches como el Audi o el McLaren, hay una pequeña barra brillante, metálica, que se encarga de subir y bajar "el DRS delantero". En el AM no se ve

En el AMR26 debe estar en alguna parte, pero... ¿donde?

Lo 2º que se aprecia es que los dos tornillos que en las paradas unos mecánicos ajustan las alas a toda velocidad, puede que sea solo uno. En lugar de uno a cada lado, será uno en el morro, arriba, a un palmo del extremo

Lo tercero que les llama la atención es la enorme tobera de escape de gases que hay tras la posición del piloto en el cockpit. Todos los consultados coinciden en lo mismo: no parece que sea de refrigeración, es demasiado grande. O es un experimento o algo tipo F-duct

Subimos de nivel: el AMR26 tiene demasiadas conexiones del cuerpo principal con el suelo. No es normal. El resto de coches tiene una o ninguna y este tiene al menos 4. O el suelo es de papel de fumar, o es muy flexible... no queda claro. Queda claro que normal no es,ahí hay algo

Y la rareza última es esa especie de boquete en el lateral delantero del morro. Todos dicen lo mismo:

No sabemos que puñetas es eso

Ahora mismo hay un centenar de ingenieros escudriñando fotos de las que no hemos visto... pero ellos si

[McHouserphy]

Sobre lo del "virutas de goma"... ...

Se nota que esos srs. no manejan técnicas de combate  

Cómo puedes hacer perder recursos a los rivales sin ni siquiera interactuar con ellos??  

Pues poniendo mil detalles inútiles, falsos, o inventados, en una maqueta base, ya que lo que va a probar es motor y sistema eléctrico, esos detalles aero son intrascendentes para los test reales a ejecutar.

Y mientras tanto, en el resto de equipos ponen a algunas personas a buscar lo que no hay, a ver si encuentran algo... , no vaya a ser que les pongan a pensar de verdad, y de verdad encuentren algo.    

Guerra psicoilógica  

[llumia]

Hamilton ends F1's Barcelona test on top

Lewis Hamilton finished Formula 1's first pre-season test at Barcelona with the quickest time of the week for Ferrari on Friday, as he put together a strong lap late on.

At the end of a five-day session where all the indications had previously pointed to Mercedes being well ahead, Hamilton produced a 1m16.348 seconds lap as track conditions ramped up on the final evening to end the week on top.

That lap put him just less than one tenth of a second ahead of Mercedes driver George Russell, who had been quickest on Thursday but was absent for the final day because his team had used up its allocated three days.

While testing times can be deceptive because fuel loads vary, that Ferrari was able to show some promise and prove reliable will be a boost to the squad and its drivers.

Earlier this week, Hamilton suggested that Ferrari was in a much better position than it had been 12 months ago, as it built up then to what proved to be a troubled campaign.

"Last year, we had a worse start to testing," he said. "So this is actually, considering this a completely new band of rules, it's better than we've experienced in the past. So I'm really hopeful that continues."

Hamilton's closest challenger was McLaren's Lando Norris, who rounded off a much better day for the world champion squad that had missed a lot of running on Thursday because of a fuel system problem.

Norris's best lap of 1m16.594s just edged out Charles Leclerc's fastest time from the morning of 1m16.653s, with Oscar Piastri ending up fourth quickest from his Friday morning effort.

Max Verstappen drove all day for Red Bull, as the team got back into action for the first time since Isack Hadjar's crash on Tuesday.

The Dutchman completed 118 laps over the course of the day with a best lap of 1m17.586s that put him fifth overall.

The busiest man of the day though was Alpine's Pierre Gasly, who completed a total of 164 laps in his new Mercedes-powered car. The Frenchman concluded a fairly positive week for the Enstone-based outfit, even if it remains unsure about its overall competitiveness just now.

The main local interest surrounded Fernando Alonso, who got through a full day's programme in the new Aston Martin AMR26.

The Spaniard's best time of the day had been produced in the morning, but his team will be pleased to have got 61 laps under its belt without major drama after the early problem that blighted Lance Stroll's debut outing on Thursday.

Unofficial day five times
1 Lewis Hamilton (Ferrari) 1m16.348s (67 laps)
2 Lando Norris (McLaren) 1m16.594s (86 laps)
3 Charles Leclerc (Ferrari) 1m16.653s (78 laps)
4 Oscar Piastri (McLaren) 1m17.446 (80 laps)
5 Max Verstappen (Red Bull) 1m17.586s (118 laps)
6 Pierre Gasly (Alpine) 1m17.707s (164 laps)
7 Esteban Ocon (Haas) 1m18.393s (85 laps)
8 Ollie Bearman (Haas) 1m18.423s (105 laps)
9 Nico Hulkenberg (Audi) 1m19.870s (78 laps)
10 Gabriel Bortoleto (Audi) 1m20.179s (67 laps)
11 Fernando Alonso (Aston Martin) 1m20.795s (61 laps)
12 Valtteri Bottas (Cadillac) 1m20.920s (54 laps)

https://www.the-race.com/formula-1/lewis-hamilton-ends-f1-barcelona-test-on-top/

[llumia]

El "minuto a minuto" de esta 5ª jornada de ensayos:

https://www.marca.com/motor/formula1/2026/01/30/697c55e745521b0b0797fe8f-directo.html#narration

https://as.com/motor/f1-test-pretemporada-en-barcelona-en-directo-resultados-y-clasificacion-de-alonso-hoy-en-vivo-f202601-d-2/

[llumia]

Gary Anderson's in-depth analysis of 2026 Aston Martin F1 car



Aston Martin finally hit the track at Barcelona late on Thursday afternoon. It was an inauspicious start, as Lance Stroll only managed four-and-a-bit slow laps before grinding to a halt. We don't know what the problem is, but that's what pre-season testing is all about: finding and fixing your problems so you're ready to go to Melbourne and get a result.

But when the Aston Martin AMR26 rolled out of the garage, it caught the eye more than any other car.

This is Adrian Newey's first Aston Martin F1 car after two decades at Red Bull, and this new adventure seems to have inspired him as, from what I've seen, it looks like a good interpretation of the new regulations. And to think the majority of it comes from just a man with a pencil and a drawing board...

On Thursday, I gave you my initial thoughts from what we first saw on the car but, with a few more fairly grainy images that we've enhanced as best we can, there's now enough detail to get into. And just as the airflow across the whole car is set up by the front wing and nose, I'm going to start at the front.



The nose-to-front-wing hangers highlighted in red attach to the second element of the front wing. This is the most efficient way of doing it, as it means the structural part of the nose can be shorter. If you consider the front wing's vertical load, its centre point would be in this area. If you mount it by the front element, which most teams have, then the peak load will be behind the mountings; this puts a torque into the mounting system.

However, it does mean that with these new active aerodynamic rules that you will probably only be able to back off the third element when you activate straight line mode. The forward element is mounted to the second element with the hangers highlighted with the green ellipses, so they would be rigid. The third element is mounted to the second element with the hangers highlighted with the yellow ellipses, so they will have a pivot allowing the third element to back off when requested. The jury is still out on which solution is the best.

The front wing endplates are fairly simple and don't have any upper vanes as some other cars have, for now. However, the outer tunnel, highlighted in light yellow, is as big as any I have seen and appears to reduce in height but gain in width going rearwards. This tunnel will reduce the sensitivity of this very wide footplate when it gets nearer to the track surface. Think of that sensitivity problem being similar to the porpoising of yesteryear when the cars started bouncing because of a lack of control of the ground effect aerodynamics.

The nose is also fairly benign. This large radius highlighted in white on the front outer corners blending into the sides to the upper surface will entice airflow to spill off it and travel around the sides of the nose into the void under the nose. There, it will meet up with the airflow that passes through between the wing mounting pillars highlighted in red and together head off to the leading edge of the underfloor.



And now for the more interesting part: the front suspension. Yes, it's similar to most in that it is a double-wishbone system with a pushrod-operated inboard springing and damping mechanism. But Aston Martin has pushed the limits just that little bit further on the overall packaging.

The highlight colours are different components that make up the double wishbone system. The top wishbone forward leg is dark blue, the rearward leg light blue, the pushrod red. What I believe to be the bottom wishbone forward leg is green, and the trackrod yellow.

The lighter extension of those colours going out to the coloured stars is why I say 'what I believe to be the bottom wishbone forward leg is green', because the stars are showing where I believe the intersection with the pushrod would roughly be. If it was at the yellow star then it would be too far into the wheel; however, the pushrod could be driven from the upright and not the bottom wishbone, so in reality it could then be either of those colours that is the forward leg of the lower wishbone.

Either way, as you can see with the upper wishbone forward leg inboard mounting, the complete front suspension system is mounted as high as possible within the current chassis rules for the upper surface profile of the chassis structure.



However, the inboard pickup for the top wishbone rearward leg is much lower and further rearward than most others. This dark blue star shows the inboard pickup for the forward leg, the light blue star marks the inboard pickup for the rearward leg, and the light blue line connecting them shows the inboard pivot line. The light blue arrow shows the upper wishbone direction of travel as the ride height reduces with speed or under braking or when the car rolls.

The green line is a guesstimate of the lower wishbone pivot line, while the green arrow is its direction of travel as the ride height reduces with speed or under braking or when the car rolls.

Ride-height reduction with speed will happen depending on the vertical stiffness of the car. There will also be a slight movement with roll, but with this amount of anti-dive there won't be much, if any, movement under braking. It's only when you come off the brakes that the car will get back to its proper ride height for the aerodynamic load at the speed it is traveling at.

In effect, this suspension layout will increase the caster with speed, which can give more straightline stability and/or decrease caster as the speed reduces. This will reduce the steering load for slower-speed corners, giving the driver more steering feedback.



Moving to the middle of the car, the side view is where you start to see the aerodynamic differences mount up. The sidepods are reduced in cross-section. I wouldn't say they are narrow or 'zero' sidepods, but their volume runs more or less in line with what the airflow structure around them would want to do.

I have highlighted this with the orange arrows. Basically, after defining that shape, you then open up an inlet in the area that has the least negative effect on the overall sidepod flow structure. Aston Martin has returned to the 2023 Adrian Newey Red Bull-style duckbill inlet, highlighted in green.

It also has a vertical fin mounted beside the start of the headrest/driver's helmet. This is to contain and realign the airflow that is forced around the bluff leading edge to the headrest. Doing this means less negative effect of that orange highlighted overall airflow structure.

The airbox inlet, highlighted in green, also adds to the overall cooling flow volume. The area below that inlet and the top of the driver's headrest is aggressively undercut, which will reduce the potential of driver helmet buffeting. The engine cover volume above the actual engine is quite small, so I don't think that there are many of the cooling radiator requirements mounted that high up. A lower centre of gravity for any car is always positive.

The bargeboard area inside the red ellipse has the now-customary louvre sections drawing airflow from inside to outside of the overall component. When the regulations were introduced, this component was defined as a vertical surface starting wide at its most forward point and getting narrower as it went rearward. The intention was to generate inwash, or at least reduce that dreaded outwash. With these louvres and their position, inwash is the last thing they will produce.

Aston Martin also have the louvres, which are highlighted with the blue ellipse, in the floor section in front of the rear tyre. I can't see them in detail, but I believe they will connect the airflow on top of the floor in that area with what is called the outward tyre squirt. This is the airflow that is displaced when the tyre rotates onto the track surface. Doing it this way will reduce the tyre squirt going inboard.

It looks like Aston Martin has also discovered the potential opening in the diffuser sidewall, which I have highlighted above with a yellow arrow. This is what is being called, by some, a blown diffuser - basically, introducing high-energy airflow into an area where the airflow is getting a bit tired.



A close look at the sidepod shows how little volume there is to store any radiator cooling cores. I have highlighted this area, top and bottom, with the yellow lines. You can also see how wide and long the leading edge undercut really is, with the light blue arrows showing how it comes from that front corner of the sidepods and gets a little narrower, forcing some of that airflow outwards.

It then opens up abruptly, which is highlighted with the red arrows just where the high pressure in front of the rear tyre needs to be relieved. This abrupt opening will entice that displaced airflow to go inside through what is called the Coke bottle area. Increasing this flow volume reduces tyre drag and improves the performance of the diffuser and rear wing, a win-win situation.

Now we come to what looks like a huge engine cover cooling outlet, which I have highlighted the trailing edge of with the orange line. Yes, it is rather large but part of that is because the inner surface of that outlet duct is basically a 'limpet' fit to whatever is housed under that section of the engine cover. This makes the outlet look bigger.

Also, it is further forward than the 'cannon' outlets (which aren't small) that we see at the rear of most other cars' engine covers. Being more forward means there is more time for the hot cooling airflow, which is highlighted with the red arrows, to mix with the free-stream airflow before it gets to the rear wing. These forward outlets don't require any major rear outlets where other cars have them in the area of the green ellipse.

My motto is don't fool yourself with the car's overall efficiency and downforce numbers by not running with adequate cooling for those hot races. Start there and when it's colder, you can always use a bit of duct tape on the radiator cores until you get your cooling balance and overall requirements sorted out.



The rear suspension layout is interesting. Yes, it's a top wishbone and either a lower double-link or wishbone and toe link system, with a pushrod-operated inboard spring and damper mechanism, but it's the positioning of everything that is significant.

For a closer look I have cropped the above picture. This reduces its quality but it gives us more of an idea of that layout.



The top wishbone forward leg is highlighted in dark blue and the rear leg light blue. One of the interesting features is how high the inboard end of the rear leg is mounted. It looks like it mounts on the central rear wing pylon. So what does that achieve?

To get a decent level of anti-lift on the rear suspension, it's the difference in relative heights of the inboard mounts of the top and/or bottom wishbones that matters. By having the rear leg inboard mount higher, it means that the forward leg inboard mount can also be higher. Basically, it gets that forward leg out of the way and should be better structurally as it will go nearer to the top surface of the gearbox outer surface, as opposed to it being in the middle of the side panel of that structure.

The pushrod is highlighted in red, the driveshaft shroud in magenta, and the lower wishbone - or link as it might be - in green. Again, this green link goes forward a long way and might even mount onto the engine, or at least the engine-to-gearbox interface.

I have highlighted the floor stay with a white arrow that is in front and inside of the rear tyre. However, there is another stay or link further rearward, again highlighted with a white arrow. It seems to mount inboard just between the top wishbone inboard mounts. I don't think it is anything to do with the suspension and it could just be a diffuser stay.

It's great to see a car that is a bit different, but that doesn't mean it's better than the others. However, it shows some lateral thinking and demonstrates that there are quite a few ways to achieve the same end result.

Adrian has been very good at that in the past, but today's cars are not the work of one person, so there will be many very intelligent brains who have contributed to what we are looking at. But the reality is that you still need one captain to decide in which direction the ship is travelling in, and that person at Aston Martin is Adrian Newey.

https://www.the-race.com/formula-1/gary-anderson-verdict-aston-martin-2026-f1-car-adrian-newey/

[GoVal]