Alonso’s engine is slower than the F2 in Baku and Honda explains its problems: “We detected abnormal signs”

It was well known that Aston Martin and Fernando Alonso They would suffer a lot in Baku due to the enormous lack of power of the Honda engine, but the day was worse for the Asturian when he was forced to get out of the car in Free Practice 2 this Thursday in Baku due to an oil leak due to a failure in his propeller.

Before, in Free 1the best top speed set by a Aston Martin in its best turns was 322 km/h, far from the 337 of Nico Hulkenberg. And in Free Practice 2, Lance Stroll clocked 315 km/h and Alonso, 309 km/h in its best turn. Finally, in Free Practice 2 overall, Fernando reached 311 km/h at the finish line.

The data continues to show the great difference there is with the rest of the engines on a straight line, just due to pure acceleration, without the pilot being able to do anything or have any influence on this lack of speed. Just due to a pure lack of engine power.

In Free 2, McLaren reached 325 km/h, Haas reached 326 km/h, Alpine, 327, and higher, Russell, 339 and Leclerc, 336. All, far above an Aston Martin that left another even more worrying fact.

According to data provided by the ‘X’ account ‘Holiness’ (@F1BigData) and also by the ‘Grande Premio’ portal, Aston Martin scored worst maximum speed at the detection point than all Formula 2 cars in the silver category classification. All the F2s surpassed the lead achieved by the green car, of course, taking into account the gain represented by the slipstream that the F2s benefited from in their turns.

According to these data, Joshua Dürksen set the best top speed on a straight line, reaching 328 km/h, and Beganovic, the worst, with 318.3 km/h.

It is true that there were many Formula 2 cars that set top speeds similar to the F1 cars on this track and some cars from the Great Circus were surpassed by other drivers in that lower category in terms of maximum speed on a straight line.

All this, due to the current F1 engines, which, unlike the F2, have 50% electrical energy, which runs out very quickly. And in the case of Aston Martin, even more. It says a lot that The Honda engine was the only one that was surpassed by the maximum speeds set at the finish line by all the Formula 2 cars in the classification of a lower class.

Honda explains engine failure and its challenges

Shintaro OriharaHonda’s track manager, referred after Free Practice 2 to the problem caused by the oil leak in Fernando Alonso’s engine and the enormous challenges his power unit faces on a circuit with so many straights.

“During Free Practice 2, we had some anomalous signals in Fernando’s oil system data. We checked it carefully during the session and the decision was made not to put Fernando out on track again to protect the new power unit. Unfortunately, this means that we will have to change some parts, something we will do overnight,” he commented.

“We introduced new power unit components in both cars for this event (which means a grid penalty for Alonso and Stroll)so the first thing we did in Free Practice 1 was to check its operation. We later confirmed that everything was working as we expected. In this circuit, power management is extremely important, so we ran our simulations and worked on them. “Based on the real-time track data, we were able to make some adjustments throughout the two sessions,” Orihara added.

“In the low-speed section, handling is of course important, as is turbo lag, because we have a lot of tight corners here. “We’ve worked on adjusting the data all day, but we still have work to do tonight.”he explained.