What is Aston Martin up to?

[Acid09]

Long distance tests? So the plan on stringing more than five laps together?

[Deleted]

Good for them, this was the only sensible choice... hopefully ACO has the guts to put the ILMC-entered car out of it's misery before Le Mans, would be so unfair for others if they'd decide otherwise. Unless AMR itself waves the white flag first.

[isynge]

Degree of tooth sucking at the Spa withdrawal. Smacks of a growing realisation that there's something quite profoundly awry with the car...

At the moment I think it's only fair for the ACO to boot out the ILMC car, which would actually be a decent compromise in letting the Kronos entry in - which Aston Martin could then spin as being its 'second' entry.

Struggling to think of another programme that has a gestation this troubled, Panoz LMP07 and Rondeau M482 spring to mind as parallels, not sure they augur well for the AMR-ONE.

[Fogelhund]

Originally Posted by isynge

Struggling to think of another programme that has a gestation this troubled, Panoz LMP07 and Rondeau M482 spring to mind as parallels, not sure they augur well for the AMR-ONE.

The Panoz Abruzzi and Lister Storm LMP are other parallels.

[The Badger]

As Aston Martin have now withdrawn from Spa , I feel that they should now pull at least one of the LM entries , and throw a bit of money towards Kronos and 3 drivers too .

AT least they will get a half decent result , and can use the race as a test for the new chassis .

I do feel however that both cars shopuld be pulled , as its turning out to be a bit of a joke this late on .

[Pandamasque]

Originally Posted by The Badger

As Aston Martin have now withdrawn from Spa , I feel that they should now pull at least one of the LM entries , and throw a bit of money towards Kronos and 3 drivers too .

AT least they will get a half decent result , and can use the race as a test for the new chassis .

Half decent as a top 10 (maybe)? It looks like nobody believes ACO will enforce article 19, and many don't see any need to do so. As it stands, unless some petrol-powered team pulls a miracle out of the bag, the 7 diesel cars will have pace to finish top 7 even with reliability problems.

Originally Posted by MulsanneMike

Adventurous? Not at all. Hardly "safe" going to the open wheeler route. Much more difficult to produce a car that doesn't end up too draggy. Aston has gone the safe route with a rather uninspired front end aero package, there's nothing revolutionary there and it harkens back to the early days of LMP900.

Don't you think that Prodrive were able to do exactly what everyone else does, including an African manufacturer with zero LMP experience, but seen some advantages in a different design approach? They could even grandfather their old more conventional car, but didn't.

[JAG]

Originally Posted by isynge

Struggling to think of another programme that has a gestation this troubled, Panoz LMP07 and Rondeau M482 spring to mind as parallels, not sure they augur well for the AMR-ONE.

The double Le Mans winning Peugeot 905, a car which was up and running a full year before it's disastrous '91 Le Mans debut.

That program had the likes Jean Todt driving it forward, it's early difficulties led to some saying a 3.5 car would never finish Le Mans, nevermind win.

These days we have the advantage of 24/7 news and discussion, the disadvantage is people lose perspective, in this case how early the project and season is.

[Gingers4Justice]

People seem pretty fickle with this project.

Most people have taken one look at the car and they've decided it's a very conservative design.

But there's a reason why the prodrive designers are sitting in a prodrive design room and we're not... they do know what they're doing.

This year isn't going well for Aston but it's the first year of a 3-year project, don't forget.

[Jimmy Magnusson]

Originally Posted by Gingers4Justice

People seem pretty fickle with this project.

Most people have taken one look at the car and they've decided it's a very conservative design.

But there's a reason why the prodrive designers are sitting in a prodrive design room and we're not... they do know what they're doing.

This year isn't going well for Aston but it's the first year of a 3-year project, don't forget.

I also think the Prodrive designers are working under considerable restrictions, and I'd suggest Mike may have taken a lot more than one look at the car!

[BRG]

Originally Posted by Jimmy Magnusson

I also think the Prodrive designers are working under considerable restrictions, and I'd suggest Mike may have taken a lot more than one look at the car!

What sort of restrictions do you mean?

[JAG]

Prodrive worked hands on with the Lola Coupe for three years, Richards also said they had an opportunity to use the V12, they went this route because they believe a lower budget program has to be different to be competitive.

Lots of comparison have been made with the AMR-ONE, but I do think the 905 one is most relevant. Both cars are designed to win Le Mans, once the car is sorted it may have to go through an evolution to achieve front running pace, but that is target, and is a fundamental difference between others who just wanted a car on the grid.

[Jimmy Magnusson]

Originally Posted by BRG

What sort of restrictions do you mean?

$$$$

[MulsanneMike]

Originally Posted by JAG

Prodrive worked hands on with the Lola Coupe for three years, Richards also said they had an opportunity to use the V12, they went this route because they believe a lower budget program has to be different to be competitive.

Lots of comparison have been made with the AMR-ONE, but I do think the 905 one is most relevant. Both cars are designed to win Le Mans, once the car is sorted it may have to go through an evolution to achieve front running pace, but that is target, and is a fundamental difference between others who just wanted a car on the grid.

The comparison to the Peugeot 905 is flawed. Peugeot had effectively an unlimited budget, Aston clearly doesn't have that. Thus don't expect the proverbial ugly duckling Aston to turn into a magnificent swan.

[chernaudi]

Maybe AMR paying the ACO the 30,000 Euro fee to buy themselves out of running Spa is less expensive than sending two cars to Spa only to have a very short outing come raceday, even if they made it that far if the LM test was anything to go by.

And Mike is right--Peugeot had a huge budget to redesign the 905 and set things right. Audi was able to do the same with the R15. The Audi R18 is a revolutionary concept on several fronts, and even the new Pug 908--a fairly conservative and modest updating of a proven design, but a new car just the same--is still state of the art in most ways, and that's because Audi and Peugeot have relatively unlimited funding. AMR/Prodrive don't. It's that simple.

Some can even draw a comparison to AMR and the Virgin F1 team. Big difference is that Richard Branson isn't pouring his money into the team by choice. I don't think that AMR has the choice to do things on the cheap.

[Nordic]

Originally Posted by Fogelhund

The Panoz Abruzzi and Lister Storm LMP are other parallels.

The Group C BRM was a bit of a problem child, in fact most BRM's were!

What are the chances of Prodrive turning this one round?

[Simmi]

Originally Posted by Nordic

What are the chances of Prodrive turning this one round?

They have obviously pitched and sold this car to a number of buyers so I would say there is a lot of pressure on them to sort it out.

[cmk]

Originally Posted by Gingers4Justice

People seem pretty fickle with this project.

Most people have taken one look at the car and they've decided it's a very conservative design.

But there's a reason why the prodrive designers are sitting in a prodrive design room and we're not... they do know what they're doing.

This year isn't going well for Aston but it's the first year of a 3-year project, don't forget.

If we were talking about nothing but random internet pseudo-punditry I would agree; my ability to technically evaluate the car is limited. However Mike and others whose careers leave them uniquely placed to comment on and off the record about the car's design are people I'm inclined to listen to first and foremost.

I thought this one had been stated as a 2-year program?

[Tom908V12]

What terribly sad must feel english fans of Le Mans now, as they counted on Aston-Martin to decently represent Britain in endurance

[Victor_RO]

Originally Posted by Tom908V12

What terribly sad must feel english ans of Le Mans now, as they counted on Aston-Martin to decently represent Britain in endurance

They've got one A. McNish and one A. Davidson though in potentially race-winning cars...

[chernaudi]

The Brits might point out that Allan is a Scot, of course! Not that it matters to me, granted that England and Scotland are officially different countries, they're still part of the UK.

It still doesn't help that Allan and Ant are in a German and French designed car respectively, though I personally would like the drivers to be in the spotlight every now and then, as opposed to the cars always being the start.

However, the AMR-One is more a scar than a star in that respect as of now.

[courageous]

Originally Posted by chernaudi

The Brits might point out that Allan is a Scot, of course!

only if he doesn't win, otherwise he is most definately British


Aston Martin's ILMC entry is null & void so surely 1 of their Le Mans cars has to be kicked out as it was on the premise of an ILMC entry? (that Le Mans entry would arguably been enough to secure a season budget for another team)

Trouble with buying a car before you see how it performs is you are taking a massive gamble - looks like the collectors who stumped up for the not-so-flying-brick have lost out in that gamble but that's the risk they took; can't imagine anybody putting a deposit down on an AMR-TWO before it's first race though.


mind you, from some quarters it sounds like you could turn up with a Skoda Fabia & complain about your lack of pace simply because your petrol engine wasn't equivilant to the multi-million euro factory diesels

[The Badger]

Originally Posted by Nordic

The Group C BRM was a bit of a problem child, in fact most BRM's were!

What are the chances of Prodrive turning this one round?

I fully expect to see that chassis making its mark , one day , but not soon , and to expect a finish at Le Mans is a bit much .

Man , Im glad Im not driving it , those poor drivers who are , have nothing to look forward to for all their efforts , imo .

[Danny_GT2]

What is Aston Martin up to?? That really is the big question ATM! Probs better off sticking with a grandfathered B09/60, even for Sebring and/or Spa & continue on developing the AMR One! At this stage though, they probably should've kept with the B09/60 for the year! :/

[isynge]

Originally Posted by JAG

The double Le Mans winning Peugeot 905, a car which was up and running a full year before it's disastrous '91 Le Mans debut.

That program had the likes Jean Todt driving it forward, it's early difficulties led to some saying a 3.5 car would never finish Le Mans, nevermind win.

These days we have the advantage of 24/7 news and discussion, the disadvantage is people lose perspective, in this case how early the project and season is.

Not sure I buy the 905 comparison.

I recall people greeting the 905's arrival at Montreal in '90 with a degree of awe about how it looked and some of the new concepts it introduced, compounding that it managed to run not too far off the pace in qualifying. While it was clearly outpaced in the early part of '91 lucking into the win at Suzuka will have eased a few worries - I don't think anyone is credibly thinking the AMR-ONE is going to win anything anytime soon - even if the race distance was 430km...

[FordCosworthPanoz]

I bet Greg Pickett and Cytosport are happy they didn't send in an order for this car with the likes of Jota.