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Lance Stroll has pointed the finger squarely at his Honda power unit after his race-ending crash at the Monaco Grand Prix, insisting a persistent engine braking problem pushed him into the Tecpro barrier at Antony Noghès.
Running 16th on lap 57 — well outside the points-paying positions — Stroll went straight on at Antony Noghès and collected the barriers. The Aston Martin driver was unequivocal in his diagnosis.
"We were just getting to the end of the race, and then we had some engine braking issues throughout the whole race," Stroll 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."
Although the track surface had been breaking up in the approach to Antony Noghès, Stroll dismissed it as a contributing 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 issue is not new to the Silverstone-based outfit. Both Stroll and Fernando Alonso have been vocal about driveability inconsistencies since Aston Martin switched from Mercedes customer engines to Honda works powertrains and began producing its own gearboxes. Alonso has repeatedly described the problem as "random downshifts" — a gearbox-related fault that manifests within the broader power unit context.
The warning signs were there before Sunday. As covered earlier this weekend, Alonso had explicitly cautioned that Aston Martin's unresolved gearbox issue could cause crashes on the narrow streets of Monaco — and events proved him right on both fronts. The Spaniard himself hit the wall in Free Practice 1 after losing control into the chicane, and Stroll's Sunday accident offered the most dramatic illustration yet of the team's unresolved technical struggle.
Team ambassador Pedro de la Rosa struck a more measured — and arguably more diplomatic — tone when speaking to the media after the race, suggesting Stroll's crash was ultimately the result of a driver refusing to give up despite a difficult car.
"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. That is really the most incredible thing. We lost one car – but just one car – because the driver was pushing no matter the difficulties he was experiencing."
However, when pressed on Stroll's specific claim that the engine pushed him into the wall, de la Rosa shifted closer to the Canadian's own account, acknowledging the deceleration anomaly without going into detail.
"Well, we're experiencing inconsistencies on the deceleration phase," he admitted. "I would not like to give more details on that, because analysis is still ongoing, but there are definitely things that are not helping the drivers push to the limit. And when they do, if the whole deceleration process doesn't go as expected, you can end up in the wall. And that's what exactly happened to Lance."
De la Rosa confirmed that Honda and Aston Martin are jointly analysing the situation and will explore different solutions and engine maps ahead of the next race, while cautioning that the complexity of integrating a new power unit with an in-house gearbox under the 2026 regulations makes a quick fix far from straightforward.
"It's a complex issue. When you're talking about engine and gearbox together, you're working as a whole. It's not as simple as that, especially this season, with the new regulations and with this small combustion engine with a very big turbo engine."
He’s a software engineer with a deep passion for Formula 1 and motorsport. He co-founded Formula Live Pulse to make live telemetry and race insights accessible, visual, and easy to follow.