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Aston Martin have scored three points in fourteen races of 2026 and failed to finish fifteen of their twenty-eight entries. The cause, according to Adrian Newey, is vibration from Honda's new power unit. Every race for Fernando Alonso and Lance Stroll, and what comes next.
Two thirds of the way through the Chinese Grand Prix, Fernando Alonso withdrew from the race. He had been overcome by discomfort from how much his car was shaking.
That is the Aston Martin 2026 season in one moment. Fourteen races in, the team has 3 points, all of them Alonso's, and has failed to finish 15 of its 28 race entries, the worst record on the grid by a distance. Lance Stroll has been classified at the finish four times. An Aston Martin has started last on the grid eight times.
Twenty-five Japanese Grands Prix have been held since 2000, all at Suzuka except two at Fuji. Pole won seventeen, Max Verstappen won four in a row from 2022, and Kimi Raikkonen won from seventeenth in 2005 with a last-lap pass. Every winner, grid slot and safety car, measured.
The drivers' own words on it are in our archive: every message Fernando Alonso exchanged with his engineer on air this season, from the Canadian Grand Prix onward, is on Fernando Alonso's team radio page.
The first seven rounds:
| Round | Grand Prix | Alonso | Stroll |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Australian | Retired | Not classified |
| 2 | Chinese | Retired | Retired |
| 3 | Japanese | 18th | Retired |
| 4 | Miami | 15th | 17th |
| 5 | Canadian | Retired | 15th |
| 6 | Monaco | 10th | Retired |
| 7 | Barcelona | Retired | Retired |
The next seven:
| Round | Grand Prix | Alonso | Stroll |
|---|---|---|---|
| 8 | Austrian | 18th | Retired |
| 9 | British | 18th | 19th |
| 10 | Belgian | 19th | Retired |
| 11 | Hungarian | 14th | 13th |
| 12 | Dutch | 9th | Retired |
| 13 | Italian | Retired | Retired |
| 14 | Spanish (Madrid) | 17th | Retired |
Aston Martin's trouble began before the season did. In pre-season testing the car struggled to run, with early breakdowns linked to communication failures between the power unit and the chassis. Then came the vibration.
Newey's explanation is precise: "The PU, the combination of the ICE and possibly the MGU as well, is the source of the vibration. It's the amplifier. The chassis is, in that scenario, the receiver." The shaking has been blamed for damaging other components in the car, so a power unit problem does not stay in the power unit.
It also reaches the drivers. In pre-season, Alonso said he could manage about 25 consecutive laps before risking nerve damage in his hands, and Stroll put his own limit at 15. China was the race where that stopped being a theory.
At Zandvoort, Alonso scored the team's best result of the year, ninth. His engineer's message afterwards was as much for the factory as for him:
"Well done Fernando, that was a great drive, very disciplined and a great boost for everybody down at Silverstone."
In the same race, before retiring, Lance Stroll questioned a strategy call:
"Like, we said that the Cadillacs would be a problem." His engineer: "We thought we were struggling so much on the soft. We thought the hard would give us better performance." Every message from that race is in our Dutch Grand Prix 2026 race radio archive.
Not much, this season. Honda's chief engineer Shintaro Orihara has said there will be no major power unit step before the first race of 2027, and that even then the aim is to reduce the gap to Mercedes, Ferrari and Red Bull Ford rather than close it. Newey has said Honda needs "a very large step in combustion engine power".
On the chassis side, the upgrades brought to Hungary and Zandvoort are the last aerodynamic development planned for this car. A weight-saving programme is due to be finished around Baku, and from then on the team runs the final version of the 2026 car.
Nine rounds remain, starting with Baku on 26 September. The whole table is in the 2026 standings.
Results and grid positions come from Formula 1's official timing data and match the championship standings after the Spanish Grand Prix.
A non-finish includes crashes as well as failures. The timing data records that a car retired, not why. Where we give a cause, it comes from the team or the driver.
The radio count is what Formula 1 broadcast, not everything said. Our 2026 radio begins at the Canadian Grand Prix, so the China withdrawal is not in our archive.
The team has blamed vibration from Honda's new power unit, which has been blamed for damaging other components and affected the drivers, alongside a combustion engine that Adrian Newey says needs a very large step in power. Honda has said its next major upgrade will not arrive until 2027.
Three after the Spanish Grand Prix, all scored by Fernando Alonso: tenth at Monaco and ninth at Zandvoort.
He withdrew at about two thirds distance after being overcome by discomfort from the car's excessive vibration.
Not significantly. The team has finished its aerodynamic development for this car, and Honda has ruled out a major power unit upgrade before 2027.
When a car is struggling, the radio is where you hear it first: the complaints, the strategy arguments, the moment a driver says he cannot go on.
The Formula Dream app plays live driver radio as it is broadcast, transcript beside the audio, and collects every FIA document of the weekend as it is published, including the power unit element changes that come with a season like this one. There is also a live timing Dashboard, currently in beta.
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Nineteen Chinese Grands Prix have been held in Shanghai since 2004. Lewis Hamilton won six, pole won twelve, and in 2026 Kimi Antonelli took the first win of his career there, at 19, with Hamilton on the podium for Ferrari for the first time. Every winner, grid slot and safety car, measured.
EngineerWell done Fernando, that was a great drive, very disciplined and a great boost for everybody down at Silverstone. Thank you. Yeah, absolutely. Thanks to you guys, everyone at Silverstone. Amazing. A lot to come to guys. And more to come I know. Thank you.
DriverI don't understand why you boxed
Engineerme,
Driverman. Like, we said that the Cadillacs would be a problem. We didn't.
EngineerI understood, Lance. We thought we were struggling so much on the soft. We thought the hard would give us better performance. I think your pace now is going to be good. But that was the choice we took at the time.
