Autobayng News Team
Honda say the changes they made to their power unit ahead of the Australian Grand Prix weekend made a substantial difference to the vibration problems they experienced.
Before the race weekend began Aston Martin said their drivers would have to limit the number of laps they completed in the car because the vibrations were so severe they were at risk of nerve damage.
The team was further constrained by a severe shortage of parts. Although they brought four batteries for their power units to Melbourne, only two worked, meaning neither Fernando Alonso nor Lance Stroll had a spare available.
Nonetheless Stroll completed 43 laps in the grand prix, and was still running at the end, while Alonso did 21 before retiring. Honda’s trackside general manager and chief engineer Shintaro Orihara said there were signs of clear improvement in their power unit.
“In Melbourne, we made another step in the right direction,” he said. “We were able to see that our power unit countermeasures worked in race conditions when we ran in the grand prix without reliability issues. This improvement has been significant if you look at where we were in Bahrain compared to where we are now.”
Stroll was 15 laps shy of completing a race distance yesterday. Orihara said they are on course to achieve that, but did not say when he expects it to happen.
“We can see from our data that the battery vibrations have continued to decrease, and we are now confident we are on track to complete a full race distance,” he said. “In this aspect, we are on the right trajectory, and we need to keep up this momentum.
“Every lap we can complete is vital for our PU data gathering, so the hard work and maximum effort will only continue as we move forward.”
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Published by
Keith Collantine
Lifelong motor sport fan Keith set up RaceFans in 2005 – when it was originally called F1 Fanatic. Having previously worked as a motoring journalist, Keith began running the site full-time in 2010, achieving a long-held ambition to dedicate his full attention to his passion for motor racing. View all posts by Keith Collantine
