Fernando Alonso reveals fresh Aston Martin problem amid ‘repetitive’ F1 woes

Aston Martin and Honda may have overcome their vibration problem, but Fernando Alonso has revealed a fresh issue after the Miami Grand Prix.

Miami marked another milestone for Aston Martin as the team finished a grand prix with both cars for the first time this season, with Alonso coming home a lap down in 15th, two places ahead of team-mate Lance Stroll.

Alonso ran long hoping to capitalise on rain that never fell, though the two-time world champion admitted it wouldn’t have made a massive difference to Aston Martin’s end result.

“We were just waiting for some rain. If it comes, you may avoid one stop,” he explained in response to a question from Crash.net.

“But it doesn’t change much because we are one stop behind the next car, so even if it rains and they do an extra pit stop, they are still ahead of us. So there is not much we can play [with], but try to learn with the strategy management and the tyre management.

“We managed to finish the race with both cars for the very first time, so some reliability improvements and this is the positives we have to take from Miami.”

While Alonso revealed Aston Martin and Honda have eliminated the vibration problem that had been plaguing the AMR26 during the early races of the season, he confirmed a new issue relating to the gearbox has emerged. 

"Honestly, it was more the gearbox the whole weekend than the engine,” he explained.

"So I don't know - the electronics, something was very weird on the downshifts and the upshifts, so not very well controlled.

"So yeah, that's the fix number one for Canada. I think with all the heavy braking zones in Canada, we need to improve the gearbox behaviour at the moment.”

Alonso said he is braced for Aston Martin’s struggles to feel “repetitive” for some time yet.

Asked if the Canadian Grand Prix will be better, he responded: "No, let's see. I think we will make steps on that drivability point of view. Performance not, so we need to stick together with the team. It's going to be a very tough, tough race.

"It's going to feel repetitive, obviously, we need to face the media every Thursday, Friday, Saturday and Sunday.”

When a journalist apologised, Alonso said: "No, it's good and you do your job. We drive fast, but it's repetitive, the message.

“We have no upgrades until after summer, so we don't need to come to Canada [being asked] ... What we expect in Canada is the same, what we expect in Austria is the same. That's the thing that we need to manage, the frustration level from everybody in the team, but I think we are all relaxed.

"We are all committed to, after summer, having a better second half of the year. Let's see if we can do that.”