Honda woes strike Alonso again - as Aston Martin explains critical issue

After a late start to testing and the least pre-season mileage of any team, Aston Martin has placed the blame for its issues squarely at the feet of Honda.

It's a familiar situation for Alonso, who faced development issues with McLaren as they brought Honda on board in 2015, a partnership plagued with reliability and performance issues.

Now, for the first time, Aston Martin is operating as a works team, joining forces with Honda as Formula 1 once again moves into a new era of regulations.

Team Principal Adrian Newey and Honda Racing President Koji Watanabe faced the media on Friday at the Australian Grand Prix, explaining the issue which they believe could see their drivers fail to complete the race.

The issue is a vibration from the power unit, which damaged batteries to the point of destruction after extended use during testing.

While Honda has not yet identified the root cause of the problem, they have implemented a stopgap for Melbourne.

“Based on the extensive dyno testing, we will introduce countermeasures we believe to be the most effective solution at this stage, starting this week,” said Watanabe.

“However, its effectiveness we cannot yet fully guarantee under the real track condition, so certain conditions will be applied to power unit operation this week.

“Without giving away any technical details, what we have achieved for this weekend, it tested on the dyno over the course of the weekend and got to the solution which we will be using here at Melbourne,” said Newey.

“That vibration into the chassis is causing a few reliability problems, mirrors falling off, taillights falling off, all that sort of thing, which we are having to address.”

The most significant problem is that the vibration is transmitted through the steering wheel into the driver's fingers, with Fernando Alonso warning he would not attempt more than 25 laps without risking permanent nerve damage.

For teammate Lance Stroll, whose billionaire father owns the team, that threshold is 15 laps.

That is, at least, an improvement from initial rumours that the car would not be able to complete a single lap of the Grand Prix.

“To me I think there's no point in not being open and honest on our expectations,” said Newey.

“We are going to have to be very heavily restricted on how many laps we do in the race until we get on top of the source of the vibration and improve the vibration at source.”

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