A shock start
Honda and Aston Martin dreamed of a decidedly different Japanese GP – it is the home race for the Japanese engine manufacturer – but the start of the partnership between the Japanese giant and Lawrence Stroll’s team is presenting higher obstacles than expected.
Read more Button is sure: “Honda will get there. They are the only ones who can break the top 4”
At the moment, Aston Martin is the worst car on the starting grid, even behind Cadillac. During the press conference reserved for team principals, Honda HRC number 1 Koji Watanabe emphasized that at the chassis level, Aston Martin is just as responsible as the Honda power unit for making the AMR26 uncompetitive.
Andrew Benson, GP correspondent for the BBC, answering users’ questions, emphasized that in reality, the chassis deficit weighs even more on the balance than that of the power unit: “More than half of Aston Martin’s gap to the leaders was due to the chassis, an authoritative and highly experienced figure pointed this fact out to me during the Suzuka weekend – Benson’s words – a thesis that coincides with what was observed by other teams on GPS data regarding the speed of the cars in different sections of the circuit, data to which all teams have access. Establishing a clear breakdown is nonetheless complicated because engine behavior can affect the car’s cornering performance. There has been much talk about vibrations, but are they an inherent factor of the engine or is it the chassis that amplifies them? Newey himself in Australia had admitted that the car had deficiencies and that at the chassis level it was probably the fifth force on the track. Essentially, if a Mercedes power unit were fitted under the hood of the Aston Martin, the latter would be competing with Alpine and Haas. Certainly, the AMR26 is overweight and particularly suffers in fast corners.”
