Aston Martin suffered two more retirements in the Chinese Grand Prix, and realistically, a different outcome was hard to expect in the second race of the season following the Melbourne debut. The British team hopes that the data collected over the first two weekends of the championship will help them show meaningful progress at the Japanese GP, Honda’s home race, scheduled at the end of the month. In Shanghai, all the current weaknesses of the AMR26 became evident, from reliability issues to excessive vibrations, as well as a lack of top speed.
Alonso: “Excessive vibrations, I couldn’t feel my hands or feet”
For Fernando Alonso, the script was somewhat similar to Melbourne. The Spaniard had a strong start, supported by a car that was competitive at least in that moment, only to be rapidly overtaken by the cars he had passed, suffering five overtakes in a single lap – a moment he jokingly hoped over the radio would be broadcast. It wasn’t live on global TV, but fans watching his onboard on F1 TV shared it on social media.
“As I said in Australia, at the start we all have the same battery, fully charged, and the car launches well,” Fernando Alonso explained. “Starts are instinctive, not about the battery championship we have now. So that’s the most fun part.” His frustration with the Aston Martin’s lack of competitiveness was also evident in a hand gesture directed at Sergio Perez (pictured above), who, in the Ferrari-powered Cadillac, later overtook him down the long straight to Turn 13 with a speed delta of around 20 km/h.
The other major issue Fernando Alonso faced was the well-known and much-discussed vibrations. “I retired because the engine vibrations were excessive and abnormal. From lap 20 onward, I couldn’t feel my hands or feet anymore, and once we were being lapped with the Safety Car on track, it made no sense to continue losing sensitivity,” Alonso said, caught on his onboard camera briefly removing his hands from the wheel on a straight to find some relief from the torture. “The vibrations are always present. You can drive, but after more laps, half an hour or 40 minutes, you start to lose feeling, and that’s what happened to us. Honda made some corrections, but the rev limit still doesn’t allow us to finish a race.”
About the Japanese power unit, Alonso added a semi-ultimatum ahead of Suzuka: “Changes in approach? Ask the team. My plans are clear until Japan: go home, rest, train hard, and prepare properly for the race. I hope Honda does its homework and that we can see progress for the upcoming GP.”
Stroll: “The car suddenly switched off”
Lance Stroll’s Chinese GP lasted only about ten laps before his Aston Martin AMR26 stopped at the end of the pit straight. The Canadian tried to stay positive despite another difficult weekend: “The car suddenly switched off at Turn 1. We need to investigate, but we suspect a battery issue. Overall, this weekend we completed more laps, gathered more data, and learned more about the car and engine, so that’s a positive takeaway from China. We have a lot of work to do across all areas and need to push for improvements. It’s not an easy moment for the team, but we are working together and there’s plenty of potential to unlock.”
Krack emphasizes learning from Shanghai
Mike Krack, Aston Martin’s Chief Trackside Officer, also highlighted the value of the Shanghai weekend in understanding the car: “Lance’s car had a suspected battery issue and stopped on lap ten. Fernando’s race ended on lap 34 when we retired the car due to abnormal vibrations. This is an area we are working on with Honda to improve. We gathered a lot of data and lessons from this race, which we will apply in preparation for Japan.”
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