Ahead of the Singapore Grand Prix, Aston Martin changed components of both cars, meaning Fernando Alonso and Lance Stroll started from the pit lane.
When speaking to AS, Alonso revealed that his turbo from Saturday at the Grand Prix had broken, so he was forced to make the change he made under Parc Fermé conditions.
Alonso said, “Yesterday’s turbo was broken and had to be replaced, no matter what.”
However, when this was brought to Chief Engineer Shintaro Orihara, he contradicted Alonso’s claims, insisting that the turbo was not broken and that the change was made at Alonso’s request.
Fernando Alonso
© XPB Images
“It was not broken,” Orihara told the media at the end of the weekend.
“But we decided to change the component based on Fernando’s feedback. So, on the data, we still haven’t seen any equation. But the driver is the best sensor, so we decided to replace the unit based on his comment.”
“We fortunately have two weeks, so we will check everything to make sure our component is working correctly.”
Despite a new turbo for the Singapore Grand Prix, new issues appeared for the Spaniard during the race on Sunday, as he encountered problems with his energy deployment.
Following the race, Alonso stated, “A lot of energy deployment problems in the race, not deploying in the right place at the right time, especially after the virtual safety cars.
Fernando Alonso
© XPB Images
“We lost a lot of places and a lot of ground with the lack of deployment. So yeah, we need to look at that.”
When asked about Alonso’s energy deployment issues, Orihara stated, “A difficult point in this type of track in this regulation is in energy; at each corner, the harvest power is different.”
“Then we need to also tune for driveability and also boost, following. I believe another manufacturer is trying to get the best driveability and also a boost in following.
“So not performance difference coming from power itself, also energy management and also driveability, boost while following. This is a very complicated regulation.”