As was to be expected, Baku proved to be no friendly circuit for Aston Martin. Fernando Alonso and Lance Stroll were again at the back of the field, fending off the Cadillacs. And the worst part is that both were forced to retire from the race due to technical problems, reliability issues that are beginning to become recurrent for Honda.
Although Honda does not agree with that theory. In fact, Honda’s chief engineer in Formula 1, Shintaro Orihara, has announced that they have not seen anything irregular in the engine Alonso was using during the race. In other words, they have found no reason to justify his retirement. This is not new.
In the McLaren era there were already Honda suspicions about Alonso’s retirements
On lap 20 of the Azerbaijan Grand Prix Fernando Alonso’s race was over. The Asturian driver headed into the pits, stopped at his box and the mechanics pushed the car into the garage. Apparently, a mechanical fault had brought his Azerbaijan adventure to an end. Now new evidence casts doubt on that.
In a post-race discussion, Orihara, Honda’s head of circuits, assured that “with the data we’ve reviewed so far, the engine is fine. We don’t see any problem in the data, but we will continue to review it carefully.” In other words, Honda doesn’t understand why Alonso retired.
On lap 7, Lance Stroll already retired, stranded in the middle of the track, but in his Honda engine they did detect the fault. Not in Alonso’s, who retired while he was fighting to avoid last place with the Cadillac of Valtteri Bottas, whom he was repeatedly passing in the twisty section but who regained the position on the enormous straight.
Este fin de semana Alonso sí tuvo un problema de motor en los segundos entrenamientos libres, algo confirmado por Orihara: “Vimos señales irregulares en el sistema de lubricación. Inspeccionamos el motor y encontramos la causa”. Tuvieron que montarle un motor nuevo a Alonso, lo que significó una penalización en parrilla. En carrera no encontraron nada.
Una situación peliaguda porque recuerda a la que ya vivieron Alonso y Honda entre 2015 y 2017, especialmente en este último año, cuando ambas partes convivían con McLaren. En aquella época se instauró la creencia de que Alonso estaba abandonando ciertas carreras en las que ya no tenía opciones de puntuar.
La gran pregunta es si en Honda empiezan a sospechar que casi una década después Fernando Alonso pueda estar repitiendo el mismo modus operandis.
Imágenes | Aston Martin, Honda
