Adrian Newey reveals Aston Martin ‘nerve damage risk’ with ‘heavily restricted’ running confirmed

Aston Martin team principal Adrian Newey has admitted Fernando Alonso and Lance Stroll’s running in the Australian Grand Prix will be “very heavily restricted” due to “permanent nerve damage” concerns.

The vibrations of the Honda power unit in the AMR26 are not only compromising the chassis and reliability of the car, but are also transferring through the steering wheel, into the fingers of its two drivers.

Having endured a dismal pre-season with limited running on track, the fledgling relationship between the Silverstone-based squad and the Japanese car giant has failed to produce a car that can safely complete a grand prix distance for the start of the campaign.

In a media session ahead of the opening round in Melbourne, Newey conceded that neither Alonso nor Stroll will finish the race at Albert Park, something that was expected in the build-up to the curtain raiser amid intense speculation that the car could not mechanically reach the chequered flag.

However, the Briton has now confirmed that the “more significant problem” is on safety grounds.

“That vibration into the chassis is causing a few reliability problems: mirrors falling off, tail lights falling off, all that sort of thing, which we are having to address,” Newey told media, including RacingNews365.

“But the much more significant problem is that vibration is transmitted ultimately into the driver’s fingers.

“So Fernando is of the feeling that he can’t do more than 25 laps consecutively before he will risk permanent nerve damage into his hands.

“Lance is of the opinion that he can’t do more than 15 laps before that threshold.”

Whilst Newey did not give further specifics on how long the team would race for on Sunday, he did state that the “very heavily restricted” running will continue until Honda and the team can get on top of the issue.

“So I think there’s no point in [not] being open and honest in this meeting, on our expectations,” he added.

“It’s something that, unfortunately, Koji [Watanbe, president of Honda Racing Corporation] and I haven’t had a chance to discuss properly prior to this meeting, but we are going to have to be very heavily restricted on how many laps we do in the race — until we get on top of the source of the vibration and improve the vibration at source.”