Aston Martin, the ordeal continues: double power unit problem in FP1. Alonso stopped, Stroll completes just 3 laps

No miracle

Those who hoped for a last-minute miracle were proven wrong. In a Formula 1 built on details and thousandths of a second, the disaster of the Aston Martin-Honda team at this start of the season becomes louder every day, exponentially increased by the stellar expectations that the team’s ownership had placed on this regulatory revolution.

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In the first official session of the year, FP1 of the Australian GP, the situation that Adrian Newey’s team found itself in was simply embarrassing. It’s hard to find other words to define it. It was known that the green cars were in Melbourne only to make an appearance and avoid the very heavy fine in case of a forfeit, but seeing the physical demonstration of all this on track still made a certain impression.

Double stop

Lance Stroll completed just 3 laps during the first free practice session and recorded a time exactly 30 seconds slower than that of leader Charles Leclerc. Fernando Alonso, at the dawn of his 23rd season in F1, didn’t even manage to complete a lap. Officially, the team communicated that for both cars the problem concerned the power unit.

The first statement was released by Honda: “We found a suspected power unit-related issue which will prevent car #14 from participating in FP1“, the message distributed to journalists. Shortly after, Aston Martin confirmed similar problems on Lance Stroll’s car as well: “Lance’s FP1 session has come to an end due to a suspected PU related issue. The issues on both cars are being investigated further”. At the moment it is not clear if the two AMR26s will take to the track during FP2.

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