Aston Martin continue AMR26 upgrade plan despite F1 2026 struggles
Aston Martin clearly haven’t got off to the best start in this new era of Formula One, with both the team and Honda on the back foot due to issues with their power unit.
However, that’s not stopped the team from staying on their planned development trajectory when it comes to aerodynamic updates.
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They followed up on a quite substantial update package that was installed on the car in Australia, with another suite of updates in Japan.
This included revisions to their front wing and modifications to the floor’s leading edge devices.
One area of focus for Aston Martin’s aerodynamicists with this update is the front wing’s footplate.
A subtle geometrical adjustment but, the edge of the footplate has been raised (above, left), which will alter how the vortex that’s formed here, and later interacts with other aerodynamic structures, behaves.
Any adjustments here are going to compound when they interact with these other structures and are also subject to the car’s ride height behaviour.
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In a combined effort to help redistribute how the front wing is creating outwash from the outboard section and how the wing creates load from the flapped section, Aston Martin also made adjustments to the chord length of the upper flap.
The slightly taller chord upper flap seen in China (left), was switched for a marginally shorter chord element in Japan, albeit that trim likely precipitated across the entire span of the element.
Furthermore, although we’re unable to see it in these images, the strake beneath the front wing was also shortened in Japan.
This was announced by the team in the car presentation document ahead of the event, along with the changes that were made to the floor fence configuration.
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