Aston Martin F1 crisis: Every word of Lance Stroll's Japanese Grand Prix press conference

Lance Stroll looks on at Aston Martin before the 2026 Australian Grand Prix — Photo: © IMAGO

Aston Martin F1

Aston Martin F1 crisis: Every word of Lance Stroll's Japanese Grand Prix press conference

The Canadian faced the media at Suzuka on Thursday

Graham Shaw Consultant Editor

Digital sports specialist running global brands for 30 years

Thursday 26 March 2026 10:55 Updated: 11:31

The crisis at Aston Martin might be the biggest storyline in F1 in 2026, and the focus will be even more intense at this weekend’s Japanese Grand Prix.

While the new regulations sweeping the sport have created some pretty explosive headlines (thanks mainly to Max Verstappen), they have often been overshadowed by the nightmare unfolding for Lawrence Stroll’s expensively-assembled team.

This weekend at Suzuka, Aston Martin’s misfiring power unit partnership with Honda will be the big subplot as the Japanese giant endures ultimate embarrassment at its home race.

Article continues under video

That power unit, let’s remember, produces vibrations so bad that drivers Fernando Alonso and Lance Stroll literally cannot complete a race. Instead the pair fear permanent nerve damage from prolonged exposure.

Throw in the speculation around the team principal role and it is quite the crisis: Is Adrian Newey stepping back? Is Jonathan Wheatley stepping in? What about Christian Horner?

Things really came to a head during Qualifying at the Chinese Grand Prix recently when Lance described the 2026 car as: “The worst piece of s*** I’ve ever driven in my f****** life”.

It was against this backdrop that Stroll Jr faced the assembled F1 media at Suzuka on Thursday during the drivers’ press conference.

We’ve pulled together all the questions the 27-year-old Canadian was asked, and all of his answers. Notably, one very specific word featured in just about every answer, unsurprisingly. Improve.

Lance Stroll: Every word he said at the Japanese Grand Prix

Here is the blow-by-blow account of that Thursday briefing in Suzuka:

Q: Lance, if we could come to you now. Difficult start to the year for the team given the problems. How would you describe the mood in the team? Let’s start with that.

Lance Stroll: Well, everyone’s just working as hard as they can to improve the situation for sure. None of us are happy with where we are. It’s not the start to the season that we hoped for, but it is what it is and we’re just working as hard as possible to improve it.

Q: Can we talk about potential improvements? Laps have been limited, we know that, but do you believe the car still has potential?

LS: I think so, yes. We know we have issues on the engine side. There are areas we need to work on with the car. I think high-speed corners are still a weakness for us. So yeah, we’re just trying to improve in all areas that need work and it’s just about bringing performance as quick as we can. Q: Honda’s home race here in Japan. What does success look like for you here at Suzuka?

LS: We’re just trying to improve the issues we had in China. In China we had big vibration problems, reliability issues, so just tackling some of those problems. I think getting both cars to the chequered flag would already be a good step forward for us.

Q: Final one from me. There’s a lot of speculation surrounding the role of team principal at Aston Martin. What are your thoughts on it? Do you think Adrian has too much on his plate as things stand?

LS: I don’t know all the details about that, but I know Adrian’s team principal right now. I know that we have to improve the engine, we have to improve the car, and I think that’s what everyone’s focused on.

Q: (David Schneider - Shiga Sports, Japan) Question for Lance. Obviously the vibration is the main focus right now for improving the car, as well as the reliability. Once that is resolved, how quickly do you expect the pace of your car to catch up with the midfield?

LS: Well yeah, we need to improve the vibration, we need to improve the reliability, but even when we’re finishing laps we’re three seconds off, three and a half seconds off the lead cars, so there are a lot of things to improve. Even when we fix the vibration and improve the reliability, we need to find performance, like I said earlier, in the engine, more power and more downforce. So a lot of areas to work on.

Q: (Ben Waterworth - Speedcafe) Question for Lance. You were touching on the vibrations before. Is there anything that you and Fernando have been able to do physically to try and prepare yourself a little bit more while you’ve got those issues? And for yourself, is there any concern about flaring up your old hand injury with the vibrations at the moment, based on the previous injury you had with it?

LS: Not much to do physically, no. Hand’s all good.

Q: (David Croft - Sky Sports F1) So a question for Lance. A lot of people are talking about when Aston are going to get improvements, when is the engine going to… From a driver’s perspective, how painful is it to drive this car? At what stage into a stint or into a race do you start to feel those vibrations hurting you? How much longer do you think that you can carry on? Obviously there wasn’t anything you could do about the retirement there. What are the sensations feeling like from a driver’s perspective right now?

LS: I think we can complete like half the race, but then also we just have reliability issues. So yeah, it’s very uncomfortable. But at the end of the day, we just want to be much more competitive as a team. That’s the most painful thing for everyone. We’re all pushing very hard to just bring more performance and get back in the fight where we want to be, which is up at the front of the pack. So that’s everyone’s focus and it’s just about getting there as quickly as we can.

When is the Japanese Grand Prix?

Sunday’s race gets under way at 6am UK time (7am CET, 1am ET in the US or 10pm PT Saturday on the West Coast).

Before that, practice gets us under way on Friday with FP1 due to start at 2.30am UK (3.30am CET, 10.30pm ET Thursday).

F1 HEADLINES: Honda chief to face media as brutal Aston Martin timeline revealed

Written by

Graham Shaw - Consultant Editor

Digital sports leader with 30 years of senior level experience running global brands. Built sportinglife.com to be a behemoth in the UK as well as being in charge of the Planet Sport network of sites including planetf1.com, football365.com, teamtalk.com and planetrugby.com. Then grew goal.com to be the world's biggest soccer website in 18 languages and 37 territories. Was GM of Portals for Perform Group (now DAZN) with overall responsibility for sportingnews.com, spox.de and voetbalzone.nl.

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F1 Aston Martin Lance Stroll Japanese Grand Prix Suzuka