Aston Martin’s car risks giving drivers ‘nerve damage’ and is unlikely to finish F1 season-opener
MELBOURNE, Australia (AP) — Aston Martin has predicted it is unlikely to finish Formula 1’s season-opening Australian Grand Prix on Sunday without its drivers risking permanent nerve damage.
Adrian Newey, the F1 car design great who’s heading into his first race as Aston Martin’s team principal, said Thursday the team’s Honda power unit causes vibrations which could damage the hands of drivers Fernando Alonso and Lance Stroll.
Neither will likely be able to tolerate even half of the 58-lap race distance and the car’s race time will be “very heavily restricted” until a solution is found, Newey added.
Aston Martin had a poor preseason, often slower even than new team Cadillac and it logged the fewest laps of all 11 teams.
“That vibration (transmitted from Honda’s power unit) into the chassis is causing a few reliability problems,” Newey said.
“Mirrors falling off the car, tail lights falling off, that sort of thing, which we are having to address. But the much more significant problem with that is that that vibration is transmitted ultimately into the driver’s fingers.
“So Fernando is of the feeling that he can’t do more than 25 laps consecutively before he will risk permanent nerve damage into his hands. Lance is of the opinion that he can’t do more than 15 laps before that threshold.
“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 to improve the vibration at source.”
Despite the long list of issues, Newey says the AMR26 car has tremendous potential as F1 starts a new era of regulations.
He argued the chassis is F1’s fifth best behind the expected top teams Mercedes, Ferrari, McLaren and Red Bull and that, following an aggressive development program, has the potential to run at the front at some point in 2026.
Alonso, though, is keeping the faith until Friday practice in Melbourne, where he believes fixes on the car might provide a sunnier outlook.
“For us, it’s just vibrating everything,” the two-time F1 champion said.
“But it’s not only for us. The car is struggling a little bit, so that’s why we have some issues, some reliability problems that made our days slightly short.
“Since (preseason testing in) Bahrain, there were a couple of tests done and some of the solutions are implemented on the car now, so (I’m) curious to see what (happens) tomorrow (and) if we can improve.”
Its disappointing performance has been variously attributed to a compressed design time due to late arrival, Honda’s need to rebuild its research and development capabilities after leaving Red Bull, the challenge of producing a new in-house gearbox, and the team running a so-far unproven fuels partner in Aramco.
But it’s the side effects that will likely sideline its cars early in Sunday’s race at Albert Park.
Cadillac driver Valtteri Bottas joked about Aston Martin’s lack of form. Asked to pick title contenders, he listed Alonso and Stroll alongside Mercedes’ George Russell — who’s widely considered one of the favorites — and suggested Mercedes wouldn’t catch Aston Martin until the final race of the season.
“They’re going to beat Aston at the very end in Abu Dhabi,” he said.
___
This story corrects Newey quote about Aston Martin having problems with “mirrors falling off the car” and not “off the air.”
___
AP auto racing: https://apnews.com/hub/auto-racing