Alonso ‘struggled to feel my hands’ as vibrations blamed for Chinese GP exit

Aston Martin Formula 1 driver Fernando Alonso was “struggling a little bit to feel my hands and feet”, as Honda vibration issues knocked him out of the Chinese Grand Prix.

The troubled AMR26 endured another difficult weekend amid ongoing struggles with its Honda power unit.

Aston Martin failed to get both cars to the chequered flag in Sunday’s Chinese Grand Prix, with Lance Stroll knocked out due to a battery issue, while Fernando Alonso’s retirement was vibration-related.

While Honda has dialled out some of the extreme vibration issues it has battled since the pre-season, Alonso noted that these fixes have been “artificial” and don’t always work in a race situation.

“I probably wouldn’t have been able to finish the race anyway,” he told the media, including Crash.net.

“Vibration level was very high today. From lap 20 to 35, I was struggling a little bit to feel my hands and my feet.

“We were one lap behind, we were last, and there was probably no point to keep going.

“It was worse today than any other session during the weekend, for whatever reason.

“Some of the steps we did were achieved artificially, just lowering the rpm of the engine, so everything vibrates less.

“But in the race you still need to go high in the rpm when you make an overtake, when you have to recharge, things like that.

“So, it’s obviously, over time, it’s more difficult. It’s more demanding.”

Despite his issues, Alonso says he enjoyed the start of his race, before the “battery world championship” took over.

“The starts are fun,” he said.

“Same as in Australia, the car seems to start really well. On lap one, it’s true that we all have the same level of battery, which is full.

“Then, we enter into this battery world championship and on this we are not good.”

Stroll makes “pray for us” joke as Japanese GP approaches

Lance Stroll joked when asked about the upcoming Japanese Grand Prix - Honda’s home event - that people should “pray for us”.

In 2015, Alonso famously had his ‘GP2 engine’ outburst over the McLaren team radio at Suzuka due to the power unit’s poor performance.

Looking ahead to this year’s Japanese Grand Prix, Alonso has urged for patience with Honda as it works through the issue.

“From Australia to China, we only had five days, and the engine was exactly the same,” he added.

“Now, we have two weeks [until Japan]. We need to spend more time on the dyno, we need to give Honda more time to understand the vibrations and where they come from.

“Probably we fixed the battery isolation, even if today Lance had a problem, though I don’t know exactly what the problem was. But we need to give Honda more time.”