Krack says Aston Martin’s Mexico GP options were insufficient

Fernando Alonso and Lance Stroll both retired within five laps of the Mexico City Grand Prix. Aston Martin chief trackside officer Mike Krack said the team had already realised before the start that completing the 71-lap distance would be difficult.

Krack said Aston Martin had discussed ways to manage the cars, including running in clear air, changing gear use and reducing power. He said the team quickly realised those options were insufficient: “there is nothing you can do.”

The cars ultimately stopped with water-pressure problems, one too high and one too low; the race-ending faults were found in the power-unit cooling circuits. Krack said nobody could be happy after another double retirement and added that he thought Honda felt the same.

Honda chief engineer Shintaro Orihara said the power unit had behaved “a little abnormally, or not as expected” under Mexico’s special conditions. He said traffic was not directly linked to the problem, though it did not help power-unit operation. Honda would bring hardware and software countermeasures to the São Paulo Grand Prix to improve its robustness, he added.