Motor racing-Aston Martin to limit laps in Australia with drivers at risk of nerve damage

By Ian Ransom

MELBOURNE, March 5 (Reuters) - Aston Martin will limit their laps at the season-opening Australian Grand Prix to avoid the risk of their drivers suffering nerve damage from vibrations coming through the steering wheel, team principal Adrian Newey said on Thursday.

Newey said vibrations from the Honda-supplied power unit were transferring to the chassis and placing a strain on Fernando Alonso and Lance Stroll's fingers.

"That vibration into the chassis is causing a few reliability problems: mirrors falling off, tail lights falling off, all that sort of thing, which we are having to address,” he told reporters at Albert Park.

"But the much more significant problem with that is that that vibration is transmitted ultimately into the driver’s fingers.

"Fernando is of the feeling that he can’t do more than 25 laps consecutively before he will risk permanent nerve damage into his hands.

"Lance is of the opinion that he can’t do more than 15 laps before that threshold.

"We are going to have to be very heavily restricted on how many laps we do in the race until we get on top of the source of the vibration."

BAD VIBRATIONS

Aston Martin have been plagued by reliability issues which severely limited their laps during winter testing.

Alonso, whose second stint at McLaren from 2015-19 was also blighted by problems with Honda's power unit, said he could feel the vibrations through his body when driving.

"With this frequency of the vibrations, you feel after 20 or 25 minutes a little bit numb on your hands or your feet, or whatever," he said.

"So, yeah, it has been a challenge."

Stroll said the vibrations were making the whole car fall apart, but he was philosophical about the problems.

"I mean, it’s life, you know?" he said.

Some seasons a Formula 1 driver gets in the car and it is a dream to drive, he said, other seasons the car is a nightmare.

Newey said the team had some success in reducing the impact of vibrations on the battery pack which had affected the cars' performance during testing.

"The battery is the thing that we have been focusing on because that’s the critical item on life," he added.

"The transmission of that vibration into the chassis, we haven't made any progress on."

Honda HRC president Koji Watanabe said they were working to solve the power unit's problems but offered no timeline on a meaningful fix.

"I want to hurry up, but at this moment, it’s quite difficult to say when and how," Watanabe told reporters.

Rival drivers have made light of Aston Martin's struggles, with Cadillac's Valtteri Bottas mocking the team during Thursday's pre-race press conference when asked for his top pick for the championship this season.

"If I have to guess something now, I'm going to say Lance Stroll, Fernando Alonso," Bottas said.

"And... (Mercedes driver) George Russell. I think they (Mercedes) were sandbagging so they're going to beat Aston at the very end in Abu Dhabi."