Fernando Alonso says Honda’s struggles with its latest power unit have made people understand why he criticised them when they last returned to Formula 1.
He famously criticised their first power unit built to F1’s previous engine regulations as a “GP2 engine” during Honda’s home race at Suzuka in 2015. Alonso, who was driving for McLaren at the time, said people forget others within the team also complained about the trouble they experienced with Honda.
“In a way, 10 years later, some of the things that people thought about me 10 years ago when we had this situation, now they maybe changed opinion and maybe they think that I was right 10 years ago,” he said. “For me the biggest surprise was all these last few years thinking that 10 years ago McLaren, Stoffel [Vandoorne], Jenson [Button], myself – always people seem to remember only Fernando [criticised them]. But I think Jenson, Stoffel and McLaren we were saying the same, that [the] project, the power unit, was not mature enough when we started, which everyone seems now to understand.
“But like two or three years ago, it seemed that I was crazy 10 years ago criticising or something like that. It was, I think, a few frustrations in the radio, which was there.
“As a double world champion and a competitive driver, I was not happy with the situation. Well [should I have been] happy and clapping inside the car about the job? So now I think when everyone sees from outside that situation and they see the current situation, I think they are a little bit more friendly with us, a little bit more [understanding of] the problems.”
Aston Martin limited the number of laps Alonso and team mate Lance Stroll completed at the season-opening race in Melbourne due to the extreme vibrations produced by Honda’s new power unit. The team also suffered a shortage of spare parts and did not have a replacement battery available for either car.
Alonso said Aston Martin are doing everything they can to help Honda improve. “Now what can I do in the team is just work harder, try to help Honda as much as we can, allocate some of the resources that Aston Martin has into the engine, into the power unit, into vibration problems, into deployment issues.
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“Obviously we are now in a different world in Formula 1 with all the data available, all the GPS, all of the analysis that we can have from the other teams. We can allocate some of those resources to make Honda focus on one thing and we can help them in some other areas on the power units. So we are one team. It’s a bumpy start, but I hope it will not last for too long, but there will not be an immediate solution either.”
The next race after this weekend’s Chinese Grand Prix is Honda’s home race at Suzuka. But Alonso doubts the team will be able to compete normally by then and said it is “difficult to guess” when they will.
“I don’t know really,” he said. “We still have too many issues and too many unknown issues that are coming day after day from nowhere. So it seems that we are not on top of the problems yet and that’s why it’s difficult to guess but we are pushing.
“We have very high professionals and talented people in the team so I hope by a couple of grands prix we can have a normal weekend, at least in terms of doing laps and completing the sessions.
“Then to be competitive, I think that will take more time, to be honest. Because once we fix the reliability, then we will be behind in terms of power and things. So there are two steps, let’s say, and hopefully the first step will come soon.”
Aston Martin is the only team which uses Honda’s power units. Alonso pointed out rival teams were able to complete around 10 times as many laps in pre-season testing.
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“So if they are still not perfectly optimised, imagine ourselves. We at square one. So we really need the laps, we need to be able to practice and to find the window on the car on the chassis side.
“That will obviously be very important for the weekend. I will happy if we leave China with a more-or-less normal free practice, more-or-less normal quali, accumulating laps and probably attempting to do the full race on Sunday, if we are allowed.”
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