– The Aston Martin AMR26 has not yet driven a complete race distance in one go. The Silverstone-based team did not manage this during winter testing, and Fernando Alonso and Lance Stroll also failed to be classified at the season opener in Melbourne over the weekend.
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According to Mike Krack, however, this does not mean that they would not have been able to complete the full 58 laps at Albert Park. “From our position, there wasn’t much to gain. We therefore decided together [with Honda] to save the parts,” says Krack after the Australian race.
“There were no problems with the power unit,” he emphasizes and explains: “We don’t have a crystal ball, but I’m quite confident that we would have made it [to the finish].” However, Aston Martin deliberately chose to end the race early.
Alonso only drove 21 laps on Sunday, and teammate Stroll also failed to be classified, finishing 15 laps down. “It is well known that we don’t have many spare parts,” Krack reminds in this context.
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Team principal Adrian Newey had already revealed on Friday that the team currently only has two batteries left. Therefore, they refrained from unnecessarily straining the mileage of the components. After all, points were not realistic on Sunday anyway.
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And because there will be no new batteries from Honda for the upcoming weekend in China either, they cannot afford to lose any more parts. If they had set their minds to it, they could have made it to the finish in Australia, according to Krack.
Shintaro Orihara from Honda also emphasizes that there were no reliability problems on Sunday. “This improvement is significant considering where we stood in Bahrain and where we are now,” says the Japanese.
“We are now confident that we are on the right track to complete a full race distance,” emphasizes Orihara. From the third race of the season in Japan, the home Grand Prix for Honda, the spare parts situation is expected to ease somewhat.
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