Fernando Alonso names Aston Martin 'relief' after major Honda test

Fernando Alonso has described his "relief" that Honda's extensive testing work at Sakura has eradicated Aston Martin's vibration issue.

Since the Australia opener, the team has been struggling with vibrations from its Honda power unit, with team boss Adrian Newey claiming that Alonso and Lance Stroll risked "permanent nerve damage" so severe was the issue, but countermeasures have been successfully deployed, with Alonso finishing in Japan in round three.

Between the Suzuka and Miami races, the team kept a chassis in Japan, sending it to Honda's base in Sakura for extensive testing, with Alonso now believing that the vibration issue is firmly behind the team.

"Gone, I would say gone," Alonso told media, including RacingNews365, of the situation.

"As long as you don't understand the problems and you don't fix one at a time, it is difficult to gain trust in the next steps of performance.

"So it was a relief to see the vibrations that we measured in Sakura are confirmed on track [in Miami], but obviously we are racing, so when we come here at the weekend, and we see that the situation is the same, and it will be for the next few months, it is going to be an exercise of staying calm together."

Alonso then added further insight into Aston Martin's decision not to bring any performance-related upgrades to Miami, explaining that the decision had been "the plan from the beginning."

"It was the plan, that's what we thought before Australia, so in this first part of the year, between the reliability issues and the performance restrictions we have, there is no point in bringing two, three, four-tenths to the track because you cannot capitalise on that in terms of results, because there is one second to the car in front.

"So I think we need to find a strategy, a cost cap strategy as well, so it was the plan from the beginning."