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Aston Martin’s struggles with the Honda power unit could come to an end as Honda has claimed to have found a solution to a major issue.
A lot has been made about the issues Aston Martin have had with Honda concerning the power unit they put together.
While there is definitely room for criticism, many felt that team principal Adrian Newey did not help matters by publicly criticising Honda for their power unit.
Have Aston Martin already ‘completely ruined’ their relationship with Honda?
Such a public expression of frustration has led many to believe that Newey broke an unwritten rule by airing his frustrations with Aston Martin’s partners to the world.
As Honda look to improve the Aston Martin partnership, they may have taken a big step in that process ahead of the Chinese Grand Prix.
READ MORE: Adrian Newey ‘dares not say’ how he really feels about Lance Stroll to Aston Martin chiefs
Honda have ‘another countermeasure’ to address Aston Martin power unit concerns
Shintaro Orihara, Honda’s trackside general manager and chief engineer, spoke in a joint press conference with Aston Martin’s Mike Krack.
Ahead of the Chinese Grand Prix, Orihara suggested that Honda have found a solution to the vibration issue, and they’re hoping to implement the solution ahead of the race.
“We have made some progress regarding the vibration situation, and we’re continuing to work hard to reduce it.”
“Reliability is the main area we need to improve. So we continue to work hard alongside Aston Martin. We have found something, another countermeasure, so maybe we can try something.”
“We also accumulated mileage in the race, so we learned some things during the race event, especially in terms of behaviour and also energy management.”
“We integrated these lessons into our simulation system, and perhaps we found some progress for this weekend. This is the main point of attention for this event and the lesson learned from the last one.”
READ MORE: Bernie Collins questions Aston Martin for lack of ‘PR speak’ concerning Honda power unit issues
Higher or lower: Aston Martin will complete 20 laps in the Chinese Grand Prix before their first retirement
Aston Martin in a ‘better position’ ahead of Chinese Grand Prix
Mike Krack, Aston Martin’s Chief Trackside Officer, admitted that Melbourne proved to be a far more positive experience, and he expects Aston Martin to find more success due to being in a better position.
“In the end, we saw in Melbourne that we could do a few more laps. It always seems a little strange when we say that learning from a few extra turns is important, but we really saw that we discovered things we didn’t know before. And that puts us in a better position for the second race.”
“With our new partner, with the way we organise the workflows and all that, and since it’s a sprint weekend, it creates new challenges in terms of what we can do between FP1, sprint qualification, etc.”
“So it’s good that it’s not Race 1 with a sprint, but I think there will be new challenges. However, I think we are in a better position than we were a week ago.”
Aston Martin could make massive strides in Shanghai, provided things go well. It would set them up well to turn their fortunes around in the latter portion of the season.
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