Honda says Aston Martin vibration fixes held up in Miami

Honda says it made progress on the vibration problem that had affected Aston Martin’s early-season Formula 1 running, with Miami providing the first clear race-weekend evidence that the countermeasures worked.

Formula1.com reported before the Miami Grand Prix that Honda had made progress during the long break between Japan and Miami and planned to bring further countermeasures to the race. The update suggested the team was closing in on a fix for the issue.

That picture appeared to improve in Miami. Post-race reporting said Fernando Alonso described the car as behaving normally again, with vibrations much reduced or gone. AS reported that Honda and Aston Martin believed the cause had been traced to an engine-chassis interaction and that joint changes had resolved it.

There is still a caveat. Miami reports also noted a separate gearbox or shift-synchronisation issue during the weekend, so the vibration fix does not mean Aston Martin has solved every reliability problem.

The next test is whether the solution holds up over a full race distance in different conditions and whether Aston Martin can carry any drivability gain into the next round.