Adrian Newey: Aston Martin drivers fear 'permanent nerve damage' as cars not ready

Adrian Newey has admitted his team’s cars are not ready to complete the first race of the Formula One season. Pic: David Davies/PA Wire.

Aston Martin principal Adrian Newey has admitted his team's cars are not ready to complete the first race of the Formula One season, with drivers Fernando Alonso and Lance Stroll fearing "permanent nerve damage".

Issues with the team's new Honda power unit surfaced during test events in Bahrain last month and Newey has accepted that finishing the full 58 laps of Sunday's Australian Grand Prix in Melbourne is not realistic.

In a stark admission about the ongoing problems, which relate to excessive vibrations being sent through the car, Newey revealed just how restricted Alonso and Stroll have felt.

"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 and improve the vibration at source," Newey told a press conference.

"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. But the much more significant problem is 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 to his hands. Lance is of the opinion that he can't do more than 15 laps before that threshold."

While steeling himself for a disappointing start to his first campaign with Aston Martin, Newey has not lost confidence in Honda - which powered Red Bull's Max Verstappen to four consecutive titles between 2021-24.

"Do I believe in our partners, in Honda's ability to bring that power up and to be competitive? Absolutely," he said.

"They have a proven track record and we have total faith."

Alonso later spoke to reporters in Melbourne to offer his take, suggesting he could power through the discomfort if the car was more competitive.

"The adrenaline is just way higher than any pain. If we were fighting for the win, we can do three hours in the car. Let's be clear," he said.

"I think that overcomes anything when you are in the car. You don't have a limitation that will stop you from feeling the car or what you're doing. Definitely it is something that is unusual.

"It shouldn't be there. We don't know the consequences either if you keep driving like that for months. A solution has to be implemented."

Honda president Koji Watanabe added: "We ask for your patience as we continue working towards unlocking our full performance potential.

"The engineers from Honda and Aston Martin are working closely as one team to develop and evaluate the multiple countermeasures to issue. Of course, I want to hurry up, but at this moment, it's quite difficult to say when and how."