Almondo (Brembo): “Many teams are considering changes”

The season will focus a lot on updates and not just the visible ones. Brembo, for example, is witnessing a great deal of work underway by the teams to modify their braking systems, especially the rear ones, which this year are of great importance in energy management. In some cases, the developments are inspired by competitor solutions, freely consultable as they are components classified as open source, but their production will take longer than aerodynamic innovations. Brakes, updates on the way Mario Almondo, GBU Chief Officer of Brembo Performance, is anticipating the arrival of changes to many braking systems, witnessing the great attention that the teams are dedicating to this area: “In recent months we are in a situation in which several teams, I won’t say all of them, but we’re close, are already considering some changes and some substantial experiments to correct what they have put into the car at the start of the championship with regards to the braking function”. The braking system components are classified as open source and, as such, their designs can be consulted by all participants. According to Almondo, however, the developments in the pipeline are also driven by other reasons: “It must be clarified that the teams are not asking for changes only after having seen on the FIA servers what their opponents have done, but they have asked for them straight away. This is because, when the car went on the track, they saw that the use of energy had certain characteristics that perhaps had not been well foreseen, even listening to the driver’s comments. It is true that the driver had already tested on the simulator, but in the car it is another thing. Therefore, already before we began to think about making a larger or smaller rear system, depending on the initial choices of each team. It is a process that had already started before.” The rules of open source The context becomes an opportunity to delve deeper into the rules of open source components. Almondo explains: “After the start of the championship, for the components that are defined as open source, all the teams can consult the FIA ​​servers and see what their opponents have done on their cars. Obviously this does not include the industrial secrets that belong to Brembo, but it still allows you to get an idea of ​​what the others have developed, for example for the calipers.” “This leads to re-examining what the technicians of each team have done and to requests from the partner company, in this case Brembo. We define ourselves as solution providers, because in fact that is what we do: we provide solutions and solve problems for our customers, the Formula 1 teams, who need performance, reliability and affordable costs. In this process everyone goes to see what the opponents have done and, ultimately, this triggers doubts, proposals or requests for clarification towards the supplier and the solution provider, in this case Brembo”. Photo by Joe Portlock/Getty Images Even with open source, however, Brembo can only share information that does not violate the secrecy of the work of others: “We have been playing this game for many years and we do it well. We give clarifications, but never, ever tell a team something that concerns another. Team A will never know what team B is thinking or doing, nor the reasons. Evidently, however, by having the open source files available on the FIA server, if the team A asks why team B did something specifically, he is given an explanation that does not concern what team B wanted to do, but a technical reason why Brembo thought that this was possible”. The timing Overall, the next few months could be full of updates in the field of braking systems. Almondo, however, specifies that the development will be slower than the aerodynamic one: “Any modification to the braking units that is visible, therefore calipers and so on, requires longer times. It certainly won’t be an immediate thing, because the processes are quite complex and objectively long. It’s not something that can be compared to an aerodynamic modification, absolutely not.”

Automobile Magazine – F1 English News , 2026-05-21 22:00:00