F1 Pre-Season Testing: Aston Martin Experience Difficult Start Causing Red Flag

Aston Martin have already run into some issues.

The F1 testing session in Bahrain was off to a shaky start when Aston Martin triggered a red flag within the first nine minutes of the session.

With Lance Stroll injured from a cycling accident in Spain, reserve driver Felipe Drugovich was at the wheel of the AMR23. The team had already completed a 100km shakedown ahead of the test, but it was a different story when they hit the track for the real action.

Not the start any team wants to pre-season testing! 😬

Felipe Drugovich has ground to a halt in the Aston Martin... the worst possible start here 🟥 pic.twitter.com/VMLagcoZ6U

— Sky Sports F1 (@SkySportsF1) February 23, 2023

Drugovich had just left the pits when the car came to a halt on the exit of turn four, and there was no indication of what caused the failure.

Since this was just testing, the car was retrieved and taken back to the pits for the team to work on. It could then be run again once any issues were addressed and the team was confident that the car was safe to use.

However, the team began to hide the AMR23 behind screens which they can only do when there is something significant going wrong. The team are only able to do that for a certain amount of time and so have uncovered the car in the garage to work on it and we await to hear anything further.