Former F1 TV presenter Will Buxton claimed Aston Martin “misplaced testing” after the Silverstone outfit struggled in Bahrain.
Aston Martin has already had a tough begin to the season after arriving in Bahrain for pre-season testing off the tempo. Lance Stroll claimed that the AMR26, which is the primary Aston Martin F1 automobile to be designed below the management of Adrian Newey and with the Honda powertrain, was 4 seconds off the tempo.
“Who’s misplaced testing? Nicely, DC [David Coulthard] picked it up at the beginning. Aston Martin. Horrible pre-season take a look at,” Buxton mentioned on the Up To Velocity podcast. “I imply, this was purported to be the automobile, proper? The Adrian Newey automobile. No expense spared. Honda coming again to the game, form of full-time. And it is the Honda engine that’s the huge woe.
“And if we glance again to the final time there was a giant engine regulation change, Honda have been with McLaren. They received it utterly flawed, and it seems that they’re massively… not simply off the tempo, however with an engine that’s unreliable and on the final day of testing, they solely received six laps in.”
Co-host and former F1 driver Coulthard added: “It’s extremely tough if you’ve received a down-on-power engine to really understand how good the automobile is. They’ve all received the identical tyres. So, the most effective automobile clearly takes these tyres to the next restrict. There’s extra vitality going into these tyres.
“However in the event you’ve received the downforce, then there’s much less sliding, and you are taking the potential. So, there is not any assure that, for instance Honda fixes the issue like that, they usually out of the blue have the identical energy. Possibly that’ll convey the Aston Martin automobile right into a window the place it would not work. So I do not suppose it is so simple as saying Adrian and his crew have executed a terrific job and Honda boohoo. You recognize the 2 need to work collectively.
Lance Stroll, Aston Martin Racing
Photograph by: Simon Galloway / LAT Photographs by way of Getty Photographs
“What is de facto shocking is Honda’s come again to Components 1, which could confuse a few of our new listeners as a result of Honda have been nonetheless supplying engines to Crimson Bull final 12 months, however the level of that was they determined to tug out of Components 1, and it was scheduled that their final 12 months could be final 12 months.
“And 6 months later, Lawrence Stroll presumably managed to influence them to revamp a brand new engine for the brand new rules, however they’d switched the programme off after which they needed to gear all of it again up once more.
“Within the meantime, they’ve misplaced engineers and designers to different producers. And it clearly reveals mind energy isn’t one thing you could simply do with headcount. You have to have folks with expertise.”
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