Aston Martin running interrupted by fresh Honda PU concern in Bahrain

A fresh power unit concern has rocked Aston Martin’s Bahrain test, with Bernie Collins warning the team’s running could be curtailed “significantly”.

Aston Martin’s pre-season with its new Adrian Newey-designed AMR26 and its Honda engine has not gone according to plan so far.

Bernie Collins fears significant running loss after fresh engine issue

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The team missed out on its allotted three days at the behind-closed-doors shakedown at Barcelona, only venturing out late on Thursday with Lance Stroll covering all of five laps before he was told to stop out on track.

While initially appearing to be a technical breakdown, PlanetF1.com understands that the stop was precautionary, the suggestion being an electrical issue.

After an engine change overnight, Fernando Alonso was in the car on the Friday, the final day of the shakedown, and completed an unconfirmed 49 laps.

The Spaniard and Stroll added 206 laps to that tally during the first official test in Bahrain, but at 260 laps in total, Aston Martin and its new Honda engine have the fewest laps of any team or engine manufacturer.

Their efforts to gain more track time and data were undone on Wednesday when the teams returned to the Sakhir circuit in Bahrain for the final three days of pre-season running.

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Alonso, back behind the wheel of the AMR26, managed just 28 laps before heading back into the pits with what Aston Martin told PlanetF1.com was a “PU related issue”.

Former Aston Martin strategist Collins claims the problem, from what she could see peeking into the Aston Martin garage, looks bigger than just a simple engine issue.

“The screens have been pulled across at Aston Martin,” said the Sky F1 analyst.

“I think what’s happened is, they had what we call a borescope out at the back of the engine – that’s the Honda engineers using a little camera to look inside the engine and see what’s going on there.

“And I think they’ve found something quite detrimental, and that sounds like that could stop the car for quite a while if they’ve found an issue internally in the engine.

“I think that will curtail their running significantly.”

Alonso did not venture out again before the lunch break.

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