Honda issue that wrecked Fernando Alonso’s Monza F1 qualifying revealed
Honda has explained what went wrong for Fernando Alonso and led to his shortened qualifying at Monza.
Fernando Alonso’s shortened Formula 1 qualifying at the Italian Grand Prix came after “abnormal behaviour” was detected in his power unit, Honda has revealed.
Alonso managed only one flying lap in Q1 before he was seen getting out of his Aston Martin ahead of the final runs of the opening part of qualifying at Monza.
Despite being limited to one push lap, the two-time world champion still outpaced team-mate Lance Stroll by a tenth of a second as the Aston Martins ended up slowest of all in 21st and 22nd.
Ahead of Sunday’s Italian Grand Prix, Honda and Aston Martin explained what had led to Alonso’s premature exit, and confirmed he will be starting the race from the pit lane after work was carried out on his AMR26 overnight.
“Yesterday in Q1 we identified some abnormal behaviour (in the data) on some of the PU components of Fernando's car,” a joint statement issued by Aston Martin and Honda read.
"This prevented Fernando from completing a final run in qualifying. We worked on the car overnight as a result and Fernando's car will start the race from the pit lane.”
Asked if he expected Monza to be as tough as it turned out to be for Aston Martin, Alonso replied: “Yeah, yeah absolutely. The more straights there are we know the tougher it’s going to be.
“Vegas is going to be the next one also for us. We had a problem on the engine, so we couldn’t make the last new set [of tyres] so it was a short qualifying for us.”
Pushed on how frustrating it is that Honda’s upgraded power unit is not delivering the gains needed, Alonso replied: “No nothing really. It’s as expected. We need to wait for better tracks.”
In the other side of the garage, Stroll set an unwanted record by becoming the first F1 driver in history to rack up 100 Q1 eliminations.
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