Problem after problem
There doesn’t seem to be any light on the horizon for the Aston Martin team in Australia, on the contrary. After the thunderous flop of FP1, in which Fernando Alonso didn’t complete a single lap and Lance Stroll was able to complete just 3 laps, setting a time thirty seconds slower than that of the leader, the situation seems destined to get even worse in the rest of the weekend. In fact, in the press conference the team principal and designer of the Silverstone team, Adrian Newey, revealed that the team is – literally – running out of parts.
The problems in the first free practice session in fact concerned the Honda power unit and specifically the batteries. The problem is that the team owned by Lawrence Stroll has four batteries available and two have already ‘gone’. Therefore only two remain, which are the ones currently found on Stroll and Alonso’s cars. If one – or both – were to break, that car’s weekend would be over.
Worrying words
“We continue to have problems with the battery – confirmed Adrian Newey to journalists – so we have had a new problem, if you like, which also concerns the internal communication between the battery and its management system. But the most serious problem is that of vibrations, which we continue to struggle with. So today we tried a different solution on Lance’s car. As we speak, some analyzes are underway to understand whether this has helped or not and, based on these analyses, we will define what to do in the next sessions”.
“We are running out of batteries – added Newey – we only have two left, the ones that are in the car. So, if we lose one, obviously it is a big problem. We therefore have to be very careful about how we use the batteries. The critical point is the number of batteries. We arrived here with four batteries. We have had problems with air conditioning or communication with two of these batteries, which means that, at the moment, we only have two working batteries. Considering our rate of battery damage, it is a rather worrying situation – he concluded – obviously we hope to be able to get through the weekend, field two cars and so on, it’s very difficult to be concrete about it at the moment.”
