Images of Fernando Alonso lifting his hands off the steering wheel during the Chinese Grand Prix to relieve the pain his Aston Martin was inflicting on him were uncomfortable to watch.
They were also, in the context of Formula 1’s regulatory history, somewhat familiar but also misleading.
The comparison to 2022’s porpoising crisis is obvious, but the differences are more important.
At what point does a team’s engineering problem become the FIA’s responsibility? The question has been raised since footage of Alonso’s driving was made public after he had to retire from the race because of the vibrations.
“The vibration level was very high today,” the two-time champion said. “At one point, from lap 20 to 33, I was struggling a little bit to feel my hands and my feet.
“We were one lap behind, we were last. It was probably no point to keep on going.”
His team-mate Lance Stroll, who had previously compared the sensation to being electrocuted, retired after nine laps with a suspected battery issue.
Aston Martin has yet to complete a full race distance in 2026 and heads into Honda‘s home race, the Japanese Grand Prix, aware that the vibrations need to be brought under control if it wants to at least see the chequered flag, even if that means finishing miles away from the frontrunners.
The British team’s problems with vibrations have drawn comparisons to the porpoising crisis that prompted the FIA to introduce technical directives mid-season four years ago.
Porpoising, the violent bouncing caused by cars running at the aerodynamic limits of the ground effect regulations, became so widespread and physically damaging across the 2022 grid that the governing body felt compelled to act, introducing measures to raise ride heights and limit vertical oscillations mid-season.
The intervention was controversial but defensible: it was addressing a structural problem that every team was experiencing to some degree, even if some had found better solutions than others.
Speaking on the Motor Sport Show podcast, veteran F1 journalist Mark Hughes drew an important distinction between the Aston Martin problem and the porpoising crisis: Porpoising was a generic problem, even if some managed it better than others.
The FIA’s intervention was justifiable precisely because it was addressing a structural characteristic of the entire formula.
“Some teams obviously had a better handle on it than others,” Hughes said, “but it was still there. It was a generic problem.”
Aston Martin’s vibration issue is different in kind, as it is not a consequence of the 2026 regulations applied universally.
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Aston Martin
It is a specific technical problem with one power unit, localised to one team.
Honda has been working to mitigate vibrations that have caused problems for the batteries in the energy recovery system, leading to a parts shortage that forced the team to stop early in Australia.
The problem is Aston’s and Honda’s to solve, which makes an FIA intervention very unlikely.
“Unless it’s a hazard, unless it’s a safety issue, I don’t think it’s within the remit of the FIA to do that,” Hughes added.
That distinction matters because a governing body stepping in to help one team solve a problem unique to its own machinery would represent something closer to performance equalisation than safety regulation.
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Mark Hughes
It would set a precedent with implications far beyond the current situation.
Honda has acknowledged that the issue is a key area to address ahead of Japan, its home race, with all the additional motivation that brings.
The more immediate question watching Alonso’s increasingly painful race appearances is how long his patience will hold.
“That’s probably going to blow a few times,” Hughes said of Alonso’s temper, “but I don’t think he’s gonna leave at this. I don’t think he could leave it at this. I think he will want to get the reward of it coming good.”
Alonso’s late career has been built around the pursuit of one more genuine title challenge, so walking away from Aston Martin now, before the car has shown what it is capable of, would mean leaving without the answer he came for.
“I think he will have that faith that ultimately it will,” Hughes added. “It’s inconveniently timed given the age and the stage of his career.”
