aston马丁赛车潜力分析
阿斯顿·马丁与本田的合作伙伴关系紧张，赛车的性能表现引发疑问。
随着阿斯顿·马丁与它的F1动力单元合作伙伴本田的关系持续紧张，并且关于合作伙伴关系的未来不可避免地出现猜测，现在是时候看看AMR26-Honda的实际表现远不止于令人沮丧的Q1淘汰。
虽然赛巴朗——两辆赛车首次都晋级到Q2——带来了一线希望，但在新加坡一周后希望破灭，阿隆索认为动力单元的涡轮肯定坏了，因为它的性能太差。本田后来报告称他们看不到任何故障...
这引发了一个问题：如果这辆车有一个有竞争力的动力单元，它会在哪里？这是一辆平庸的赛车，一个罕见的阿德里安·纽维的失败之作，有一个糟糕的引擎？或者是一辆好车，有一个真正糟糕的引擎？
如果我们看看赛车在整个赛季中的表现，在附带的图表中，有两点是清楚的。1) 从巴塞罗那（第七轮）到斯帕（第十轮）赛车竞争力明显下降，因为顶级车队不断增加他们的开发，而AMR26仍然停留在第一场赛事的规格。2) 从赛车唯一的更新，在匈牙利（第十一轮）的明显改进。但那辆更新后的赛车在底盘质量上真正处于什么位置？
我们可以通过查看每个赛道的GPS数据，评估汽车在全油门（即主要在直道）部分所损失的时间来进一步分解表现。由于存在许多混淆因素，这并不是一门精确的科学，但它确实给出了一种相当清晰的量级图景。
以下是一个相当简化的统计数据，但意义重大。将维斯塔潘在雪邦的杆位时间与阿隆索的第12快时间进行比较，尽管阿斯顿·马丁车手在全油门部分让出了2.238秒，但他仍然落后2.090秒。这意味着，如果动力相当，阿隆索本可以在杆位上领先一秒半。
更令人惊讶的是，尽管在新加坡的比赛中阿隆索在Q1阶段就出局，并坚信涡轮坏了，但汽车的弯道性能甚至比在雪邦时更具有竞争力。
但这并不总是那么简单，我们还需要了解在整个比较速度范围内的可比阻力和下压力数据，显然这不是车队会公开的信息——无论是向彼此还是向我们。但自从匈牙利升级以来，阿隆索一直在驾驶一辆他赞誉有加的平衡且稳定的赛车。
但是，从本田那里期望的单元改进的后续效果并未显现。虽然阿隆索在Zandvoort赛道获得第九名积分后的冷却圈中对赛车表示赞赏——"感谢在Silverstone的每一个人。太棒了。一辆驾驶起来很棒的车。"——与ADUO 1本田升级的引入相吻合，但两位车手的反馈是，它失去了之前版本所获得的驾驶性提升。
当我们对阿斯顿·马丁与每个赛道的杆位赛车进行比较时，我们得到以下结果：
未全油门时的圈速差距
Hungaroring：+1.310秒（实际：2.601秒；全油门：1.291秒）
Zandvoort：1.011秒（实际：2.487秒；全油门：1.476秒）
Monza：0.237秒（实际：3.364秒；全油门：3.127秒）
Madrid：1.003秒（实际：3.564秒；全油门：2.561秒）
Baku：2.203秒（实际：4.057秒；全油门：1.854秒）
雪邦：-0.148秒（实际：2.090秒；全油门：2.238秒）
新加坡：-0.370秒（实际：2.850秒；全油门：3.220秒）
我们可以从这些数字中推导出另一组统计数据，即每个赛道功率单元限制部分和底盘限制部分之间差距的隐含百分比分配。
这些数字表明，即使在匈牙利升级之后，赛车在弯道和全油门部分仍然在浪费时间，但功率单元构成了差距的主要部分，根据赛道布局变化很大。但在雪邦和新加坡，赛车在弯道上的速度比杆位赛车更快。
尽管在事实上是正确的，但我们应该对上述数字持谨慎态度（阅读小字*）。但它们确实描述了一个基本轮廓，其中弯道性能相当不错，最近甚至非常令人印象深刻。
然而，令人担忧的是，随着底盘性能的稳步提升，动力单元似乎在每次ADUO升级后变得更差。
ADUO 1单元在匈牙利之后的一场比赛中出现在赞德福特，全油门时的劣势增加了几分之一。这可能仅仅是各自赛道布局的问题，但正如回忆的那样，车手的反馈表明动力单元在那里几乎没有或没有整体进步。
通过涡轮增压的修改来解决这些驾驶性问题导致了ADUO 2规格，阿隆索首次在巴库获得。这是赛车在雪邦取得如此鼓舞人心的表现时的动力单元，但新加坡错综复杂的弯道布局触发了一场噩梦，糟糕的油门响应和极端不一致的部署。
如果AMR26能够神奇地获得动力单元的平等，它真的会为了 pole 位置而战吗？不，直到 Sepang 之前，不会。在此之前，数据显示自从它在匈牙利升级以来，它将是一款高 Q2/低 Q3 的赛车。但从 Sepang 开始，很可能会的。即使在新加坡也是一样。
但是，关于这一点，有一个免责声明。因为很可能是本田动力单元独特的架构（MGU-K 位于前方，如纽维所要求的，集中了车辆的质量）夸大了车辆的转弯性能。而且，如果使用更强大、传统配置的梅赛德斯或红牛动力单元，它可能会失去这种转弯优势。
然而，在考虑到许多谨慎的免责声明后，我们可以得到一个量级的概念，即底盘和动力单元之间的差异导致了阿斯顿·马丁的大圈速差距。这个更详细的画面将是车队与本田之间持续讨论的核心，以及关于未来合作可能性的讨论。
*细节：阿斯顿·马丁与 pole 之间的部分差距将是赛道演变的结果，这取决于阿斯顿·马丁参加的任何一节练习与排位赛与 Q3 之间的差异。这种赛道演变会因赛事而异。
如果我们把阿斯顿·马丁的时间与阿斯顿·马丁被淘汰的那场练习赛中最快的时间进行比较，这同样具有误导性，因为快车通常只是做到足够舒适地通过，同时节省轮胎并保留全部动力用于Q3，而慢车则是全力加速。
选择的下压力水平也会扭曲底盘与动力单元之间的对比（即低翼片会使动力单元看起来比实际更好）。
英文原文
As the strains on the relationship between Aston Martin and its Formula 1 power unit partner Honda continue and speculation inevitably questions the future of the partnership, it's a good time to look at how the AMR26-Honda is actually performing beyond just the headline depressing Q1 ejections.
While Sepang - where both cars made it through to Q2 for the first time - offered a ray of hope, it was dashed one week later in Singapore where Alonso felt certain the power unit's turbo must be broken, so poor was its performance. Honda later reported it could see no failure...
It begs the question of just where would this car be if it had a competitive power unit? Is it a mediocre car, a rare Adrian Newey dud, with a poor engine? Or a good car with a truly terrible engine?
If we look at the car's performance through the season in the accompanying graph, two things are very clear. 1) The step-change worsening of the car's competitiveness from Barcelona (round seven) to Spa (round 10) as the top teams piled on their developments while the AMR26 remained still in race one spec. 2) The step-change improvement from the car's sole update, in Hungary (round 11). But where does that updated car truly stack up in the quality of its chassis?
We can break down the performances further by looking at GPS data from each track and assessing how much time the car loses in those sections of track taken at full throttle (ie mainly the straights). It's an inexact science because of the confounding number of skewing factors* but it does give an order of magnitude picture which is quite clear.
The following is quite a reductive stat but a significant one. Comparing Max Verstappen's pole time at Sepang to Fernando Alonso's 12th-fastest time, the Aston Martin driver is 2.090s behind despite having surrendered 2.238s to the Red Bull on the full-throttle parts of the lap. The inference is that with power parity Alonso could've been on pole by a tenth and a half.
What is even more eye-opening is that despite the huge disappointment of Singapore, where Alonso went out in Q1 convinced the turbo was broken, the car's corner performance was even more competitive than at Sepang.
It's never quite that simple and we'd need to know comparable drag and downforce numbers throughout the compared speed range too, obviously not something the teams are going to release - to each other or to us. But since that Hungary upgrade, Alonso has been driving a car with a balance and poise that he has praised.
But the hoped-for follow-up of a power unit improvement from Honda has not manifested. While Alonso's praise of the car on the cooling lap at Zandvoort after getting ninth-place points - "Thanks to everyone at Silverstone. Amazing. A lovely car to drive." - coincided with the introduction of the ADUO 1 Honda upgrade, the feedback from both drivers was that it had lost the driveability gains which had been made with the previous version.
When we do the comparison of the Aston Martin to the pole car at each of the tracks since it got its Hungary aero upgrade, we get the following:
Laptime deficit when not on full throttle
Hungaroring: +1.310s (actual: 2.601s; on full throttle: 1.291s)
Zandvoort: 1.011s (actual: 2.487s; on full throttle: 1.476s)
Monza: 0.237s (actual: 3.364s; on full throttle: 3.127s)
Madrid: 1.003s (actual: 3.564s; on full throttle: 2.561s)
Baku: 2.203s (actual: 4.057s; on full throttle: 1.854s)
Sepang: -0.148s (actual: 2.090s; on full throttle: 2.238s)
Singapore: -0.370s (actual: 2.85s; on full throttle: 3.22s)
We can derive a further set of stats from those numbers, that of an implied percentage split of the deficit between power unit-limited and chassis-limited sections of the lap for each of those tracks.
These numbers suggest the car, even after its Hungary upgrade, was losing time in the corner and the full-throttle sections, but with the power unit forming the dominant part of the deficit, varying wildly according to track layout. But at Sepang and Singapore it was faster through the corners than the pole car.
Although factually correct we should treat the above numbers with caution (read the small print*). But they do describe a basic outline, one in which corner performance is more than respectable, recently even very impressive.
Worryingly though, as the chassis performance has steadily improved, the power unit appears to be worse with each ADUO upgrade.
The ADUO 1 unit came one race after Hungary, at Zandvoort, and the deficit at full throttle increased by a couple of tenths. This may be nothing more than the respective track layouts but, as recalled, the driver feedback suggested little or no overall progress from the power unit there.
Attending to those driveability issues via a turbo modification resulted in the ADUO 2 spec, which Alonso first got in Baku. This was the power unit in the car when it had such an encouraging run at Sepang, but the intricate corner-upon-corner layout of Singapore triggered it into a nightmare of terrible throttle response and wildly inconsistent deployment.
If the AMR26 could magically be given power unit parity, would it really have been fighting for pole? Not until Sepang, no. Until then, the numbers suggest that since its Hungary upgrade it would have been a high Q2/lower Q3 car. But from Sepang, quite possibly yes. Even in Singapore.
But again, there is a disclaimer about that. For it is quite possible that the Honda power unit's unique architecture (with the MGU-K up front, as requested by Newey, centralising the car's mass) has flattered the car's cornering performance. And that with a more powerful, conventionally configured Mercedes or Red Bull power unit, it could possibly lose that cornering advantage.
But while taking on board the many cautious disclaimers, we can get an order-of-magnitude idea of the split between chassis and power unit responsible for the big laptime deficit of the Aston Martin. A much more detailed version of that picture will be at the very heart of ongoing discussions between the team and Honda and about what the future might hold for the partnership.
*The smallprint: Some of the deficit of the Aston Martin to pole will be track evolution between whatever session the Aston Martin goes out in compared to Q3. That track evolution will vary from event to event.
If we compared the Aston Martin times to the fastest of the session in which Aston Martin was eliminated it would be equally misleading as the quick cars are typically just doing enough to comfortably get through while saving tyres and full power for Q3 while the slow cars are flat-out.
The chosen downforce levels will also skew the chassis vs power unit picture (ie low wing would make the power unit look better than it is).
The Race ·
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