Will the two Aston Martins make it to the Australian GP?
Adrian Newey confessed that they are short of batteries and it could happen that one of the AMR26s will not be able to take part in Sunday’s race. Fernando Alonso and Lance Stroll barely turned in rehearsals.
The Aston Martin debacle has no end. The novel about the Honda power unit, Adrian Newey’s requests for changes, the denials, the back and forth, there is no end; On the contrary, chapters are added with every minute that passes in the Australian GP, the first date of the World Championship. The last one: there is a possibility that one, or perhaps both, cars from millionaire Lawrence Stroll’s team will not start Sunday’s race.
Newey, in his role as team director, spoke at a press conference between the two training sessions on Friday and explained the critical situation that the issue is experiencing due to the lack of batteries for the electric drive of the power units provided by Honda. “We are missing batteries. We only have two left, one for each car. If we lose one, it will obviously be a big problem. So we have to be very careful with the use of the batteries. The critical point is the number we have left. We arrived here with four. We have had conditioning or communication problems with two of them, which means that, while we are here today, we only have two operational batteries,” said the Englishman.. That is to say, if one of those two is damaged during the course of the weekend, something extremely possible with the vibrations generated by the AMR526, only a green car would be on the grid. And if both break…
“Given the rate of damage to our batteries, it’s a pretty scary situation. Obviously we’re hoping to get through the weekend and get two cars running and so on. But it’s very difficult to do that right now,” Newey added, before ruling out the possibility of spare parts arriving in Melbourne.. “Unfortunately there is no chance.”
“I think it’s a moment where I feel a little helpless,” the engineer admitted.“because clearly we have a very important power unit problem, and our lack of running-in also means, at the same time, that we are not discovering anything about the car. So our information about the car is very limited because we have run very little, especially with little fuel, since this acts as a shock absorber for the battery. Honda has greatly limited our range with little fuel. It simply becomes a self-power problem.”
In Albert Park it was said that when Newey arrived at the Honda plant last November he did not meet the faces he knew from his time at Red Bull, which also carried boosters from the Wing. The Japanese house had changed some members and others had emigrated to Milton Keynes, where the energy drinks team began to design and develop their own power units. From Honda they said that the engineer requested changes with little time before the start of the activity. The ball comes and goes, but the cars don’t go.
On Australian Friday, Fernando Alonso spent the first round of testing sitting in the box and even sending messages with his phone, because the power unit didn’t even let him dress as a driver. Lance Stroll, his partner, barely made two turns. In the second session, the Spaniard completed 17 and the Canadian, 12. Obviously, with times through the roof: the two-time champion was 4s933 behind Oscar Piastri. “It’s not very different than in Bahrain,” Alonso began when asked, referring to Sakhir’s preseason rehearsals. “I was able to complete few laps because I had problems with the Honda engine in the first test and in the second. I hope to be able to do more laps in the third practice. The battery stock is a question for Honda. It is where we are. We have a great challenge and we must try to do everything we can. This is the situation, it is F1, the technology is complicated and it takes time. We are still at an almost zero point and we will try to do more laps tomorrow and learn. Until we manage to do consecutive laps we will not be able to improve the car. The engine has a big limitation and that also limits the development of the car,” he concluded.
