Stroll blames Honda engine for Monaco crash as Aston Martin's driveability woes deepen

Lance Stroll has pointed the finger at his Honda power unit after crashing out of the Monaco Grand Prix on lap 57, claiming erratic engine braking sent his Aston Martin straight into the Tecpro barrier at Antony Noghes corner.

Stroll was running 16th at the time — 18 seconds adrift of the points — when he lost control and hit the barrier. He was unequivocal about the cause. “We were just getting to the end of the race, and then we had some engine braking issues throughout the whole race,” he said. “All season we’ve been having engine braking issues, some corners it’s pushing, some corners it’s pulling, and it’s doing different things all the time. So on that particular corner and lap it just pushed me into the wall, like the throttle pedal was 50% open.”

The track surface ahead of Antony Noghes was breaking up at the time, but Stroll dismissed that as a factor. “I didn’t feel that being the problem; I just had the engine pushing me into the wall, like the throttle pedal stuck,” he insisted.

The driveability complaints are not new at Aston Martin. Both Stroll and Fernando Alonso have been vocal about the issue throughout the season, with Alonso repeatedly describing it as “random downshifts”. The problem is gearbox-related but sits within the broader power unit context — a consequence of the team’s switch from Mercedes customer engines to Honda works powertrains, combined with Aston Martin now manufacturing its own gearboxes.

Alonso had specifically warned before the Monaco weekend that such inconsistencies could prove costly on the principality’s unforgiving streets. His concern appeared well-founded: the Spaniard himself hit the wall in Free Practice 1 after losing control into the chicane, and Stroll’s Sunday retirement added further weight to the concern.

Team ambassador Pedro de la Rosa offered a notably different framing after the race, suggesting Stroll’s crash reflected a driver pushing beyond the limits of a difficult car rather than an outright mechanical failure. “The fact that Lance actually crashed just highlights that our drivers never give up,” de la Rosa said. “Even with a very difficult car, with inconsistencies on the deceleration phase of the corner, which we’ve been suffering all weekend, both drivers were pushing to the very, very limit.”

When pressed on Stroll’s specific claim that the engine pushed him into the wall, de la Rosa hinted the incident may have been another manifestation of the “random downshift” problem — though he stopped short of fully endorsing Stroll’s version of events. The divergence in accounts between driver and team representative underlines the scale of the technical challenge Aston Martin still faces in integrating its Honda-powered package.