Fernando Alonso’s physical and mental health worries

Aston team principal Adrian Newey voiced his concerns over Fernando Alonso’s physical and mental wellbeing as he announced the team are likely to be unable to complete the season-opening Australian Grand Prix on Sunday.

Aston Martin have continued to struggle with persistent reliability issues in their Honda engine, which are stopping them from completing any significant track time.

The Spanish two-time world champion was unable to take part in the first practice session of the Australian Grand Prix due to a fault with his Honda power unit, while his teammate Lance Stroll managed to complete just three laps.

During a Thursday morning media session in Melbourne, Newey faced questions about Aston Martin’s struggles, with the team principal offering some candid insights.

Newey shockingly disclosed that Alonso thinks he can manage just 25 consecutive laps in this year’s Aston Martin before risking “permanent nerve damage” to his hands.

“The vibration into the chassis is causing a few reliability problems: mirrors falling off, tail lights falling off, all that sort of thing, which we are having to address,” explained Newey.

“But the much more significant problem is that the vibration is transmitted ultimately into the drivers’ fingers. So, Fernando is of the feeling that he can't do more than 25 laps consecutively before he risks permanent nerve damage to his hands.

“Lance (Stroll) is of the opinion that you can't do more than 15 laps before that threshold. It's something that, unfortunately, Koji (Watanabe) and I haven't had a chance to discuss properly prior to this meeting.

“We are going to have to be very heavily restricted on how many laps we do in the race until we get on top of the source of the vibration.”

Newey also discussed the mental impact the car is having on Alonso but believes the seasoned driver has the right mindset to navigate what could be a challenging start to the season.

Newey said: "Fernando is one of the true greats. His ability, his talent, his all-round capability, he should have won, in truth, far more than the two championships he has to his name and however many races wins.

"Talking to him, he doesn't think he's suffering in any way. His eyesight is still very good. His reactions, he's very proud of the fact he was the fastest starter last year, in reaction time. So, he's an amazing person.

"We've been trying to contain our hopes because we knew this was going to be a difficult year, a build year. We started very late and on a very compressed cycle on the chassis side, but we knew that meant in the first half of the season we would be able to catch back up and we would very much have done without the distraction that's now caused.

"For Fernando, it's a hard mental place to be in at the moment."