Honda upgrade falls short at Zandvoort

Honda’s heavily anticipated engine upgrade may not have delivered the step Aston Martin hoped for at Zandvoort, with drivability problems now emerging as the main weakness.

Lance Stroll was blunt after qualifying P19. "Do I feel any improvement? Not really."

"Maybe a small step forward, but not enough. Chassis-wise, I think we’re doing pretty well. We made a big step forward in Budapest."

"The next thing we really need to work on is drivability and power."

Stroll says the biggest issue is inconsistency from the power unit under braking and downshifts.

"The drivability is bad, really bad," said the Canadian. "It’s a lottery."

"Right now, we’re just not getting consistent engine braking on corner entry, and we’re often experiencing delayed downshifts. So there are a lot of problems."

Fernando Alonso was more encouraged by Aston Martin’s overall progress, noting that the gap to the front has shrunk dramatically across the last two races.

"In Budapest we were in Q2, and here we were a tenth of a second off," he said. "This is also the smallest difference to the Q1 leader. Piastri was 1.3 seconds faster than us."

"Before, we had an average difference of 4.5 seconds to the best, so we’ve improved by three seconds in two races. It’s encouraging."

But Alonso agrees that the Honda package still needs major refinement.

"Drivability is part of the improvement we’ll see in laptimes," said the two-time champion.

"But, unfortunately, we can’t do much more on the track. We have to hope for major changes in physics, software, or whatever is necessary. It has to come from Japan, and it won’t happen overnight."

"Starting with Monza, we’ll have to take another step, and there are things to optimise in the package."

Honda chief engineer Shintaro Orihara also admitted more work is required.

"We’ve taken some important steps today, but there’s still a lot to do to give the drivers the confidence they need," he said.

"This is our main objective in the short and medium term."

Aston Martin ambassador Pedro de la Rosa told DAZN that the immediate focus is clear.

"We need to improve the drivability of the new engine, especially under braking and downshifting."

He also revealed another priority for Monza and Baku.

"The goal now, in the short term, is to make the car lighter and at the weight limit, which it isn’t yet, just like Williams."