Honda’s explanations for the umpteenth disaster for Alonso and Aston Martin: “We knew that, given the special conditions, we would face additional challenges. We have to learn for 2027, even from the hardest lessons”
Aston Martin I had high hopes for him Mexican GP. On Friday, during free practice, the pace shown by Fernando Alonso suggested that he could think about fighting for the points. But everything began to collapse on Saturday, when the Spaniard was asked in Q1 to stop the car due to anomalies in his Honda engine. So, thinking about getting anything positive from the Rodríguez Brothers Autodromo became a chimera.
But they couldn’t even try. Both Fernando Alonso and Lance Stroll had to retire when they had barely completed six laps of the race. From the Aston Martin roof they asked their two pilots to stop at the same time because they were seeing the telemetry abnormal pressure levels in their power units. As it could not be otherwise, the frustration was tremendous.
Shintaro Orihara, Honda’s chief engineer, had to come out to explain at the end of the race and simply said that the additional challenges posed by the height of the Mexican track were too much.
“We knew that, given the special high-altitude conditions of Mexico City, we would face some additional challenges in terms of cooling compared to other circuits. However, we note that our circuit cooling of the ERS was subjected to a greater load than expected and, For this reason, we had to stop the car in several sessions,” explained the Japanese in statements reported by Motorsport.com.
“In every race this year, We have to learn for 2027, even from the hardest lessons. We have a large amount of data that we will be able to take advantage of on this circuit next year, including those related to turbo lag, and we will work on solutions,” he concluded.
Aston Martin wants to turn the page
Despite the tremendous moral blow that the Mexican fiasco meant, those at Silverstone want to turn the page as soon as possible and look more optimistically at this weekend’s Brazilian GP. Although the engine will also play an important role because it is key to being able to overtake at Interlagos, the challenge of altitude disappears and they should have fewer problems.
“We have always done well in Brazil, so we are motivated, We are not going to bow our heads. The weather is always spicy in Brazil, it’s a fantastic circuit, fantastic fans, so it’s something we look forward to,” he said. Mike Krackchief operating officer and track boss at Aston Martin
“It’s been a hard weekend, So I think it’s good that we have a couple of nights of sleep and then we see how we prepare Brazil, but we go there with an open mind,” he said in conclusion.
