Anyone else surprised at the short gardening leave? Him starting in March changes things. I thought he would be out at least until September of 2025,which would hurt his participation in the 2026 design. If, however, he does start in March, he can absolutely be a major part of the redesign and that changes the calculations for who might be a force in 2026.
March 25 is a little late if the concept for 26 is in a fundamental direction he thinks is crap, its like not impossible but they would be unlikely to hit the first race with a class leading car. I guess Aston could save up budget, wind tunnel time, and super computer runs until he starts then try and run faster than everyone else. One things for sure, going to be exciting to see the order in 26 as this is now going to be a major shake up.
100%, but I was imagining that, since Newey is still around the F1 team during races, he would be forced to sit out 2025, which would mean he would join AM even later in the process.
March is late but much better than in the 4th trimester or something like it.
But yeah, it will be exciting, just hoping there is no one that hits the bullseye and totally dominates at the start.
I am not confident that we will see as widespread competition as we have this season, as the PU is completely changing and the aero is being tweaked. I am to worried we will see one team to develop the PU with a massive advantage again, but I hope not.
That is my fear too. Especially because that is what usually happens, especially with such a complete revolution of the regulations.
It will be a pity, just as this set of regs is becoming super competitive…
It’s certain that someone will be better than the others by a reasonable amount on day 1. The chances of them all being within a handful of hp, with equal drivability and reliability etc is near zero. It will then be years before the engines improve enough to be considered similar across the board.