Aston Martin isn’t banking on crossing the finish line at this weekend’s F1 Australian Grand Prix and getting a driver onto the podium.
In fact, the team probably would be happy to just see one of its drivers finishing the race in one piece.
Team principal Adrian Newey revealed on Wednesday ahead of the Formula 1 season opener that vibrations from their new Honda engine are posing serious health risks to their drivers after short periods of time in the car.
As a result, neither Fernando Alonso or Lance Stroll are expected to be able to complete Sunday’s race.
“That vibration into the chassis is causing a few reliability problems,” Newey told reporters in Australia. “Mirrors falling off, tail lights falling off — all that sort of thing, which we are having to address.
“But the much more significant problem is that the 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 to his hands.
“Lance is of the opinion that he can’t do more than 15 laps before that threshold.”
What did Honda say about the engines?
The comments come after the Aston Martin team made the switch to Honda as an engine supplier beginning this season.
The team has been plagued by performance and reliability problems during off-season testing, with Aston Martin recording the lowest on-track mileage of any team.
During testing, vibrations from the engine caused failures in the batteries in the engine’s hybrid system.
Honda F1 boss Koji Watanabe said they would only know whether late countermeasures were effective once the car starts running on track for practice on Friday.
However, the reported fix should only stop the vibrations from reaching the battery, but still will be transmitted into the chassi, and from there into the steering.
“There’s no point in not being open and honest in this meeting on our expectations,” said Newey who is widely regarded as a legend in designing race cars and is in his first full season as the team principal.
“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.”
What are the drivers saying about the vibrations?
When asked to describe driving the new car, Stroll gave a dire comparison.
“I guess just like electrocute yourself in a chair or something like that and it’s not far off,” he said.
Alonso said the vibrations made his hands and feet feel “numb” after a number of laps, but added: “If we were fighting for the win, we can do three hours in the car, let’s be clear. But definitely it is something that is unusual. It shouldn’t be there.
“We don’t know the consequences either if we keep driving like that for months. So a solution has to be implemented.”