Aston Martin's problems with the Honda engines were worse than expected, with team principal Adrian Newey explaining that it poses a real risk of permanent nerve damage to drivers Fernando Alonso and Lance Stroll.
Stroll described the feeling of chassis vibration caused by the engines as "being electrocuted": "It's not far off. It's a very uncomfortable vibration. It's bad for the engine but it's also bad for the human inside the car". Meanwhile, Alonso said that they feel "a little bit numb in the fingers and feet as well because of this low frequency all the time in the car."
However, there's room for optimism. Alonso says that after the changes made in the Bahrain test, where the first felt this strange vibrations, he can finish the race (via Sky). Honda boss Koji Watanabe said that the effectiveness of those measures won't be seen until the cars race on Friday.
And not everything is bad. Adrian Newey said that their chassis performance is "a bit behind the leaders, maybe the fifth best team" (out of eleven), with the performance gap between the best team and Aston Martin around a second or three-quarters of a second.
"The car has huge, tremendous development potential in it. It will take, of course, a few races for us to fully realise that potential", argued Newey (via BBC Sport). "I see no inherent reason within the architecture of the car why we can't become, on the chassis side, close to if not fully competitive."