Lance Stroll addressed Aston Martin’s reliability concerns during a print media session at the F1 2026 Australian GP. On Thursday morning, Aston Martin Team Principal Adrian Newey and the Honda Racing president discussed the key issues that the team is facing heading into the first race of the season.
Lance Stroll discusses the problems the AMR26 faced during pre-season testing
Aston Martin had a hugely disappointing pre-season testing. They turned up late to the Barcelona Shakedown week and only took part on Thursday and Friday. As well as this, they were only able to complete a small amount of laps in Bahrain after experiencing severe issues with their Honda power unit, hardly making it out of the garage during the final day of testing.
During a print media session ahead of the F1 Australian GP, Stroll was asked about the feeling of the car during pre-season testing. He was also asked whether the broken wrists he suffered two years ago are making the feeling worse.
“No, my wrists are okay now. Just the issues, I mean we’re not fast enough, that’s the main issue. We need to find performance on the engine side, on the chassis side.
“And then we’ve just had a lot of reliability issues that have cost us running time in Bahrain.”
“A lot of vibration” says Stroll on the issues with Aston Martin’s 2026 challenger
From the 2026 F1 season, Aston Martin have partnered with Honda to supply their power units for their F1 car. The team have also signed Adrian Newey as their team principal. While it takes time for a team to get comfortable with new changes, especially with the 2026 season introducing a new era of Formula One.
Newey spent time discussing the issues that the Silverstone based team are facing when running longer on track. The main issue that Aston Martin faced during testing in Bahrain were intense vibrations that damaged the Honda power unit, as well as damaging parts of the car.
These vibrations are not only hard on the car itself, but the drivers aswell. Concerns that Stroll and Alonso will be susceptible to injury have arised after Newey stated that Alonso suggested he could risk “nerve damage” to his fingers.
Ahead of the 2026 F1 Australian GP, Stroll discussed the feeling in the car and how the vibrations are affecting both the drivers and the car.
“A lot of vibration.”
“In Bahrain it was limiting us, not just from the physical driver side but also the whole car. Just falling apart with that level of vibration. It’s not good for the engine it’s not good for anything in the car, human included.
“So, there was some work done the last couple of weeks in Bahrain to try and fix it. If that’s better, then we should be in a better position this weekend.
“If not, it’s going to be difficult to complete laps.”
Stroll on how the engine problem has impacted driver development
The problems Aston Martin faced during the 2026 pre-season testing sessions limited the drivers’ run time. The lack of running on track might have an impact on the drivers’ development because they were unable to spend a lot of time learning the performance of the car. The lack of practice in testing could affect their performance at the 2026 Australian GP.
“Yeah, it’s been…I mean, we’ve had a lot of issues in Bahrain. It’s, you know, engine, chassis.
“But for sure a lot of the vibration issues, lack of power. Honda know, we all know that we need improvements in all areas. We’re not a finger-pointing culture so I’m not going to sit here and say it’s because of this, because of that, it’s because of many things that we are in the position we’re in.
“It serves us no good just to point fingers and say it’s because of this, because of that. We just need to accept what it is, work on the problems we have and move forward.
All eyes will be on Aston Martin during the 2026 F1 Australian GP this weekend. Aston Martin and Honda will be hopeful that they can complete the first race of the season without any problems. Stroll’s teammate and 2x World Champion Fernando Alonso insisted he has “100% faith that Honda will fix the problems.”
