Feature

3 Sep 2026

UNDERCUT | An espresso with Enrico Cardile

One espresso, one macchiato, two biscotti and an unfiltered take on Aston Martin Aramco’s season.

There are coffee bars, and then there is this one: a quiet space in the heart of the AMR Technology Campus, sunlight spilling across polished surfaces, screens glowing gently in distant rooms, and the faint aroma of coffee blending with the soft click of keyboards.

Chief Technical Officer Enrico Cardile is already here, espresso in hand, leaning into the moment with a measured sip, a calm breath, a clear head and his trademark disarming smile.

He’s the kind of guy who orders a single espresso, downs it standing up, and is already half‑thinking about 2027 before you’ve added sugar and taken a bite out of your biscotti.

We’re meeting in the narrow gap between races, fresh from the team’s best result of the season and with his home race, the Italian Grand Prix, just around the corner.

The headline upgrade has landed. The car has changed. The drivers are smiling again. And yet, for Enrico, this season is already the past.

We sit down over coffee to talk about the biggest upgrade in the team’s history, the art of saying no to constant development, and why the team's 2027 F1 car will share little more than a logo with the current one.

What follows is a candid conversation about development, pressure, patience, process, and what it really takes to keep moving forward when progress isn’t always visible to the outside world.

Enrico, we're talking after the team’s best result of the season so far. How do you feel?

“Honestly, it’s a mixed feeling. Friday in Zandvoort was very messy, and that clouded things a bit. It made it hard to know if we were really going to confirm the good performance we’d seen in Hungary. And when I say ‘good’, I mean that in inverted commas because, of course, we’re not yet where we want to be.

“But over the weekend, from a chassis perspective, I was very happy. We confirmed what we saw in Hungary. That’s important because Hungary is a very peculiar track: demanding in some respects, less demanding in others. You need to validate your package on a different type of circuit.

“After two race weekends with the new car, I’m more relaxed. We’ve done a good job. The correlation is good, and the car is behaving as we expect on the track.

In your UNDERCUT interview last year, you told us, “We’re going to get it right. I just don't know if that's the first race, the seventh or later.” Has the team finally got it right – or is at least starting to?

“There’s been a huge push across the team to introduce a completely re-engineered car partway through the season. In terms of magnitude, it’s the biggest upgrade this team has ever brought to the track. We didn’t start from a great baseline, but in a few months, we’ve made a very significant step forward with the chassis.”

You mention ‘correlation’ – that magic word in Formula One. Can you explain just how important it is to have clear correlation between the wind tunnel and the track?

“It’s not just correlation with the wind tunnel. That’s important, but even more important is correlation with CFD because that’s the main tool we use to develop the car. The wind tunnel is where we assess what we’ve developed in CFD, and we test it in conditions that are different from the ones in the simulations.

“When CFD, wind tunnel and track all tell you the same story, you gain trust in your process. Then, when you design the next step, you can believe in it. Every new package pushes the boundaries, so there is always a question mark until you see it on track. But if you’ve built a history of good correlation, you can go to the circuit with more confidence and less stress.”

By removing the pressure of 'you must deliver something in four or five weeks,' we created the space to do something more impactful.

The team made the bold call to commit to bringing one major upgrade package rather than a series of incremental updates in the first half of the season. How could you be certain the development path the team was going down was the right one without testing anything on the track?

“It was a brave decision. A very brave decision.

“But it was the right decision. Taking that approach changes everything about how an F1 team operates. When you’re constantly delivering small updates, you’re always under time pressure. Every few weeks you have to freeze something, release it, manufacture it, ship it. You’re sprinting all the time.

“What we did was give people time. Time for the aerodynamicists, the designers, the engineers. Time to rethink concepts, to explore ideas that need more than a few weeks to mature. Some concepts have big potential but require patience.

“By removing the pressure of ‘you must deliver something in four or five weeks,’ we created the space to do something more impactful. For me, it was the only way to achieve the step we’ve made. I don’t think we could have done this with a traditional, incremental approach.”

It left the team having to endure a very difficult period of races and mounting pressure. How did you handle that?

“Emotionally, it was very tough. We had to go through several races with very poor performance, which was frustrating from the outside and painful on the inside. But now, with hindsight, we can say that taking that risk was the right decision.”

The car has gained seconds of lap-time on the rest of the field. Where is it strongest?

“From what we’ve seen so far, the car looks particularly strong in race trim. It’s gentler on the tyres. Of course, tyre performance is also about how you manage them over the stint, but the direction we’ve gone with the car is clearly the right one.

“This is particularly important because this car is the starting point for 2027. On the chassis side, we now have a good feeling for where we need to go next.”

And where can it be most improved?

“Honda has acknowledged that we are behind our competitors in terms of overall power, and that a key focus is to improve driveability. Improving these areas will help to unlock the full potential of the package.

“When driveability is an issue, the drivers lose confidence in how the car will react, especially at the limit. And when you lose confidence, you lose lap-time. It’s as simple as that.”

Take us inside the relationship with Honda. What does the roadmap look like from their side?

“Honda is working very hard. There are several upgrades in the pipeline – hardware and software – to improve the way we control and manage the engine.

“We’re exploring how far we can push this power unit architecture to deliver the performance we need. That’s the focus now. We already saw some undesirable behaviours when we ran the new spec engine during the filming day we had after the Hungarian Grand Prix, and despite a very short turnaround between the summer shutdown and the Dutch Grand Prix, Honda managed to mitigate those issues.”

Working exclusively with Honda has brought many advantages when it comes to the packaging of the car. It's given us more freedom than we've had before.

Despite the challenges so far, do you still believe the decision to enter a works partnership with Honda was the right one?

“Yes, I do. For any team aspiring to become World Champions, the right choice is to partner exclusively with a power unit supplier, and Honda is the right partner to do that with.

“When we made that decision, Honda’s power unit was one of the best, if not the best, in Formula One.”

Was part of the appeal also the ability to control the architecture of the car and shape it around a true works partnership?

“Exactly. Working exclusively with Honda has brought many advantages when it comes to the packaging of the car – suspension, chassis layout, and so on. It’s given us more freedom than we’ve had before. On that side, we achieved our goal to better accommodate the power unit within our chassis.”

Beyond the upgrades in Budapest and Zandvoort, what’s left to come?

“After Hungary, we brought a few small refinements – tweaks to the front wing and floor at Zandvoort. Those will be the last planned aero developments for this car.

“The only exception would be if, while we’re developing the 2027 car, we discover something that it makes sense to test on track this year to help our correlation. But as of now, nothing more is scheduled.

“We do still have our weight‑saving programme to complete. That should be done around Baku. From Baku onwards, we’ll essentially be running the final version of the car for the rest of the season.”

How much weight has the team saved?

“It depends on what you choose as your reference race, but it’s a significant number – enough to dramatically improve lap-time.

“That’s a major achievement. Sometimes it comes from changing individual parts. Other times, it means rethinking how something was engineered in the first place – even the chassis. It’s a mix of small details and big structural ideas.

“In Baku, we should be very, very close to the weight limit, which is where you always want to be.”

Lance and Fernando have both looked able to race again rather than simply defend. How satisfying is that?

“I’m very happy for them, honestly. It was important for us to get closer to giving them a car they can drive the way they want.

“We all agree there has been a clear step. The car is more predictable, it responds properly to setup changes and they can use those changes to tune it to their preference. Before, in a way, the car was ‘broken’ from their point of view. It didn’t really react in a consistent way. Now it’s much better

“I saw – and felt – their frustration earlier in the season. That is not easy at this level.

“Now though, a lot of the conversation with them is about looking ahead. We’re asking: what are the limitations of the 2026 car, and how do we make sure we take another big step for 2027?”

We've made a double step, if you like: a big increase in raw performance and a big improvement in driveability.

It must be reassuring to hear Fernando say this is a ‘lovely car to drive, and more to come,” as he did over team radio in Zandvoort, though?

“It means a lot. It tells you not just that the numbers changed, but the feeling changed.

“Last year, when we brought our big upgrade package, we knew its limitations. In terms of magnitude, it wasn’t a game‑changer. It allowed us to start fighting a bit more, but it didn’t fundamentally change the character of the car. The drivers still had, essentially, the same machine, just with a bit more load. The joy of driving it didn’t really change.

“This time, it’s different. In terms of overall downforce, this package is a massive step compared to the baseline car. But it also changes how the car behaves. The way it gives feedback, how it responds mid‑corner, how it deals with load changes.

“We’ve made a double step, if you like: a big increase in raw performance and a big improvement in drivability. That’s why it feels so different to the drivers, and why their comments have been so positive.”

Let’s look ahead. The Italian Grand Prix is next – your home race. Will you be in Monza?

“I won’t be at Monza, unfortunately. I was at Zandvoort, and now it’s time for me to stay at the AMR Technology Campus to focus on development.”

Given the areas for development on the car, are you apprehensive about how we will fare at the fastest circuit on the calendar? What are you expecting?

“Expectations… if I say ‘tricky,’ I’m probably being polite. Monza doesn’t have many corners and that means there are fewer places where the driver and the chassis can make a big difference. It’s mostly about being perfect in a few corners and then having low drag and high power on the straights.

“Monza is a track that will fully expose our car’s weaknesses. From a pure performance point of view, we have to be realistic about our expectations. But that shouldn’t detract from the progress the team has made.”

One bad weekend in this sport and people can be quick to write you off. How do you live with that?

“There are things you can control, and there are things you can’t. What you can control is how you use the weekend.

“Monza will not be a wasted weekend. For everyone at Silverstone, it’s been a huge effort to suddenly have a brand‑new car, with a different DNA, and learn how to extract performance from it. We will use Monza to keep understanding this car, to see how it behaves in that specific environment.

“We’ll focus on exploiting the track characteristics as best we can and on learning. From a technical point of view, it will be valuable. From a results point of view, we know it will be hard. But the bigger picture is more important."

This season is already the past. Our task now is to extract as much information as we can from 2026 because all of that will guide the 2027 project.

When we sit down for another coffee at the end of the season, what do you hope we'll be talking about?

“I think I’ll only want to talk about 2027.

Our task now is to extract as much information as we can from 2026 because all of that will guide the 2027 project.

“From now on, it’s a daily challenge in every area: finding more downforce, reducing weight, giving the engineering group more time to run in the wind tunnel, to revisit concepts, to refine components.

By the end of the year, I expect most of our conversation will be about what we’ve learned and how it’s shaping the 2027 car.”

How is the concept going to evolve?

“Every single part will be new. Everything will have been improved.

“But conceptually, it will be an evolution of the direction we took with this year’s car.

“We’re on the right path now, but we’re not tied to it.

“Let’s put it this way: when it comes to tackling the ’27 project, we haven’t placed any constraints on ourselves in terms of trying to carry anything over from the previous car.

“In this sense, it will be a completely new car, and it gives us the freedom and mindset to achieve what we want.”