Honda has issued a statement in the midst of Aston Martin’s dismal F1 pre-season after a major failure for Fernando Alonso.
The works power unit partnership between the Japanese car giant and the Silverstone-based squad is not yet a race old, but the start to that relationship has not begun well.
After completing just 268 laps across the Barcelona shakedown and first Bahrain test, the team’s testing plans suffered a serious setback on Thursday during Alonso’s race simulation.
With three-and-a-half hours remaining in Alonso’s programme before handing over to Lance Stroll for Friday’s final day of running, the two-time world champion ground to a halt at Turn 4 after a failure, with Alonso heavily revving the engine.
Team personnel were then required to wear the marigold protective gloves to help trackside marshals retrieve the stricken machine, with Alonso not returning to the track.
It means across all of testing, Alonso has completed just 255 laps, with Max Verstappen completing 137 on Day 2 of the second test, alone.
As such, Honda has released a statement, and confirmed that only “very limited” and “short stints” could be completed on Friday.
“Our last run with Fernando Alonso yesterday showed a battery-related issue that impacted our test plan with the Aston Martin Formula 1 Team,” read the statement.
“Since then, we have been carrying out simulations on the test bench in HRC Sakura.
“Due to this and a shortage of power unit parts, we have adapted today’s run plan to be very limited and consist only of short stints.”