Adrian Newey wants to amaze as always. Many consider him an aerodynamicist, while he is also a refined engineer who pays great attention to mechanics. We had a clear example when observing the first images of the Aston Martin AMR26 which arrived in Barcelona yesterday to begin collective testing: the Silverstone team’s single-seater is interesting in many different details, but has sparked great attention due to the drastic choices made on the suspension.
Lance Stroll, Aston Martin
Photo at: Aston Martin Racing
The “verdona” still in the carbon black version was presented with the front and rear push rod scheme. At the front the AMR26 offers a multilink with the rear arm that not only slopes downwards very much but is also very open. And, while McLaren and Red Bull have renounced steering behind the lower triangle, Adrian has decided, like Ferrari, to focus on this solution, even if it is a little heavier, but it can provide aerodynamic advantages.
But everyone’s attention was polarized on the rear suspension: Aston Martin, accustomed to taking the Mercedes rear axle (gearbox and suspension), was forced, instead, to make both the transmission box and the kinematics itself, having switched to the power unit supplied exclusively by Honda. Newey, therefore, did not miss the opportunity to design a suspension that immediately attracted great attention.
Aston Martin AMR26
Photo at: Aston Martin
For aerodynamic reasons he raised the rear arm of the upper triangle, fastening it to the pylon that supports the rear wing. This is an extreme choice which subjects the pylon-arm combination to very high combined efforts, but without causing any safety problems. Newey, in his own way, had already experimented with this concept at Red Bull on the RB19.
Here is the rear suspension of the 2023 Red Bull RB19 that inspired Newey for the AMR26
Photo at: Uncredited
In 2023, in fact, there were no two supports, but the single carbon pylon was supported by a “circle”, under which the single exhaust passed, which had a reticulated structure designed specifically to withstand greater stress.
The Red Bull gearbox, thanks to this design choice, was very narrow and with a lower beltline because the wing support and suspension anchorage attached to two very profiled keels. On the Aston Martin the concept has been taken to the extreme and it will be interesting to find out how Adrian’s creation on the AMR26 was designed.
On a historical level, we must also remember another precedent for the Red Bull RB19 which cannot be attributed to Adrian Newey: we are referring to the 2013 Williams FW33 created by Sam Michael, Ed Wood and John Tomlinson. And on Grove’s car there was only one anchor point for the two arms of a curiously inverted triangle.
The rear suspension layout of the Aston Martina now features the upper triangle greatly raised with the push rod strut just ahead and the lower triangle further offset in a “cascade” of elements which allows the arms to be used with an aerodynamic function, freeing up the area on the sides of the transmission to make the diffuser more efficient.
Furthermore, Aston Martin also seems designed to proceed with a rather extreme Rake angle, depending on the freedoms granted by this regulation.
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