‘Probably we can’t race’ - Fernando Alonso’s bleak outlook for Aston Martin at F1 Monaco GP

Fernando Alonso has suggested that the Aston Martin Formula 1 team may not be able to race in this weekend’s Monaco Grand Prix due to a gearbox problem.

Having fixed a Honda-engine related reliability problem that sent painful vibrations into the Aston Martin drivers' hands during the opening rounds of the season, a new urgent issue has been uncovered on the AMR26.

At the Miami Grand Prix, Alonso revealed that erratic gearbox behaviour made his car almost undriveable. The downshift issue has quickly become Aston Martin’s most pressing problem to solve.

Alonso fears that Aston Martin “probably cannot race” in Monaco if a quick solution is not found because he is concerned that “random” downshifts could cause a crash around the tight and twisty Monte Carlo Street Circuit.

"We have struggled with the gearbox since Miami," Alonso told media including Crash.net.

“Monaco is not the place to have a random downshift, and you have rear [brake] locking or [engine] pushing or something like that. Then you will crash into the wall, and the driver will look stupid.

"We are passengers sometimes when you put one gear down and you have push from the engine, like going on full throttle. So, that's the thing that we needed to make sure that we make a step in the right direction in Canada, and Monaco will tell the truth.”

Alonso continued: "If you have the downshift problem like we had in Miami, probably we cannot even race, because we will crash in one of the braking points due to a very different downshift type.

"If we have reliability issues like at the beginning of the year, that [meant that] we completed eight, 12 laps or something like that, then it doesn't change much to be in Monaco. So we need to put everything together.

"It's what we've been working on the last two weeks since Canada, because we know that it's an important weekend and we are paying a lot of attention to this weekend and all the details.”

Alonso’s team-mate Lance Stroll also shed light on Aston Martin’s gear-sync problem.

"Every time we're under like 40km/h, we lose sync of the gears. So we have to re-sync gears,” the Canadian explained.

"So here, for example, every time we go through Loews Hairpin, we're going to lose sync completely of the gears. Then we're going to have to sync those again, which is huge laptime [loss] every time you have to sync the gears."