The next round of the Formula One world championship in Japan will be the home race for the Aston Martin team’s engine manufacturer, Honda, at the Suzuka circuit. A celebratory affair, however, is not expected amid painful days for Honda, whose return to F1 has been marked by a failure to make the grade.
Their engine’s shortcomings were exposed for the second successive race at the Chinese Grand Prix on Sunday. Fernando Alonso retired after 32 laps because the vibration from the engine was so severe he was losing feeling in his hands and feet. Hit teammate Lance Stroll had retired after 10 laps with a battery issue, an element of the hybrid engine that has plagued the manufacturer from day one.
The Spaniard was bluntly phlegmatic, if more diplomatic than he was when last he toiled with an underperforming Honda engine at McLaren between 2015 and 2017. “On lap 20 to 35 I was struggling a bit to feel my hands and my feet,” he said. “We were one lap behind, we were last, and there was probably no point to keep going.”
When asked about Japan, Stroll was simply dismissive of their chances. “Unless they can find some magic in the next 10 days, pray. Pray for me,” he said.
Aston Martin were late to the first test and from then on completed precious few laps. The reason became clear only on the Thursday before the first race in Australia. There the team principal and car designer, Adrian Newey, admitted their Honda engine had such a severe vibration problem which was transferred into the chassis that he feared his drivers were in danger of suffering permanent nerve damage. In China that fear was clearly real for Alonso.
The team are working as hard as any other, their commitment and ambition cannot be questioned but for now the tools are not there. Their pre-season running it transpired, had been so curtailed because the drivers as much as anything else, simply could not put in the laps. Worse still the engine, when it did run, was underpowered and unreliable. In Australia battery failures left them down to their very last units for the race. As it was Alonso managed 21 laps and Stroll went beyond expectations in reaching 43.
In China the vibration issue caused even more of a stir when onboard footage showed Alonso taking his hands off the steering wheel on the two straights at the Shanghai International circuit because it was so uncomfortable.
Easing the pressure on the fingers during a race is not unheard of in motor racing. During long stints at the Le Mans 24 Hours drivers will do so to prevent cramps, but it is rare in modern F1.
“It was difficult, we found more vibrations than any other session of the weekend,” Alonso said. “Physically, I could not continue much longer. It was not a nice feeling.”
Honda and Aston Martin have at least been open about their issues and the disappointment at what was expected to be the start of a new competitive era under Newey is palpable. The task they face is formidable. Developing the car, which might yet be another Newey work of genius, is all but impossible until they can put laps on it and that requires a functioning engine.
There will no quick fix for Japan. It seems unlikely there will be any quick-ish fix, as Honda took comfort only in having completed a few more laps in China over the weekend as a whole than in Australia.
“If we focus on the more favourable areas, we ran more miles than in Melbourne which is encouraging,” the Honda general manager, Shintaro Orihara, said with an inescapable air of straw-clutching from, let it not be forgotten, the engine supplier to a team that had hoped to be competing among the big four this year.
Yet small gains have to be the focus for the moment. Mike Krack, the chief trackside officer who was formerly team principal noted that all extra laps contributed to the learning process. The difficulty for Aston is it is a public and potentially long learning process.
Japan then must be endured by Aston Martin and Honda but both might take some little cold comfort in that the cancellation of the Bahrain and Saudi grands prix means that after Japan there will now be five weeks until the next round in Miami. It is now an invaluable early-season gap during which the engineers at the Honda facility at Sakura have more time to try to solve the vibration issue.
The financial investment at Aston Martin has been immense and their facilities are second to none but there will be no respite in front of home fans.
To finish first, first you must finish, goes the old racing adage. If Aston can do even as much as the latter by Miami it might be considered a victory.
