Aston Martin, what a disaster!
Having just arrived at the shakedown in Barcelona, a couple of days later than the competition, theAston Martin it seemed as if it had landed from Mars due to the sophistication of some of the genius’s technical choices Adrian Newey. Then, in the tests in Bahrain, reality showed how that apparently small delay on the schedule hid enormous and difficult to resolve problems: the fault of the new gearbox, which the Silverstone team built in-house for the first time (previously it purchased it from Mercedes together with the power unit), but also of the integration with the new engine V6 Honda for F1. Indeed, the Japanese manufacturer itself ended up in the dock, in a a script that seems not too different from the one we have already seen since 2015in the years of the very difficult debut in F1 of the hybrid era with McLaren.
The Honda F1 press conference
Precisely to respond to the criticism, in recent days the leaders of Honda HRC (the sports division of the Tokyo company) called a press conference in Japan. “Speaking frankly – explains the president Koji Watanabe to Motorsport.com – the pre-season tests were extremely tough for us. We were unable to achieve the level of performance we had anticipated, and it became apparent that there was a complex set of issues. These tests were a very important part of the process in terms of visualizing the problems and now our engineers and mechanics are working day and night, more closely than ever with the team, in order to allow us to improve. We are also having quite frank discussions with Aston Martin as we work hard to find solutions to these issues. The climb is steep but we certainly don’t back down from this challenge”.
The cause of the reliability problems
Beyond the issues related to the poor performance of the new Honda F1 engine, one of the main issues is the poor reliability caused by the unexpected vibrations (produced by the new gearbox?), which forced the team to complete very few laps on the last day of testing due to a lack of spare parts. “In Bahrain – adds the executive director Ikuo Takeishi – we observed an abnormal level of vibration, which we believe is the main cause of the damage to the battery pack. We are investigating the cause of these vibrations, both with regards to the power unit but also with regards to the car, and we want to take countermeasures. Specifically, we are currently working on the Sakura test bench with the chassis, in order to analyze and study a solution against vibrations. The battery pack was damaged due to a combination of factors that arose when the car took to the track”.
“We are working with the team to resolve these issues before the start of the season“, Takeishi then concluded. Despite the difficulties that are affecting the start of the new F1 regulatory cycle of Honda and Aston Martin in a decidedly unexpected way, for the moment the leaders of the Japanese company remain confident: “There are some problems, but we will definitely aim for victory”.
