Aston Martin Is Concerned Their Car Could Give Drivers 'Permanent Nerve Damage'

The first practice sessions of the 2026 Formula 1 season get underway on Thursday evening, and all eyes are on Aston Martin… just not for the right reasons.

The team came into the race weekend with reports swirling that they had plans to bow out of the Australian Grand Prix after a few laps. This was believed to be because of a lack of spare parts, as the team is facing massive issues with its new Honda power units.

This season has brand-new engine regulations, which means all power unit manufacturers are dealing with new challenges, but Honda's struggles have been brutal. Vibrations from the V6 internal combustion engine were believed to be causing issues for the batteries, and when these power units use a 50/50 power delivery split between the ICE and the electrical system, that's a problem.

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But it's even bigger than that: the team's drivers, Fernando Alonso and Lance Stroll, don't believe they can complete a full grand prix distance without sustaining nerve damage.

Yes, nerve damage.

That's because, as Team Principal Adrian Newey revealed to the media on Thursday, the vibrations ultimately end up going into the driver's hands.

"That vibration into the chassis is causing a few reliability problems," Newey said, per BBC Sport. "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 the vibration is transmitted, ultimately, into the driver's fingers.

"So Fernando [Alonso] 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 [Stroll] is of the opinion that he can't do more than 15 laps before that threshold."

That… that is a big problem.

It's worth noting that Stroll has battled an injury in his hand and wrist dating back to a 2023 cycling accident. He had another surgery on it last summer.

This needs to be fixed in a major hurry. They can't just cut a deal for a different engine and drop it in easily. 

Even if they could work a deal (and they won't) to get another engine, the Aston Martin was designed around the Honda engine. 

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So, dropping a properly packaged Mercedes (their previous engine supplier) in the back would require totally redesigning huge portions of the car to get it to fit and work well aerodynamically.

You can be sure Honda is working around the clock to fix this. Having to bow out of one race is bad, but the Chinese Grand Prix comes next weekend, and what are the chances this problem will be remedied by then?

Fortunately, there is an extra week between the Chinese Grand Prix and the Japanese Grand Prix — Honda's home race, so they won't want this story swirling around their big F1 return on their turf — to get this fixed.