Vandoorne expects a long recovery process for struggling Aston Martin

To put it mildly, this is not the season start Aston Martin had hoped for. With Adrian Newey as designer, the British squad had expected at least to compete at the front of the Formula 1 field, but instead they have ended up at the back.

There’s plenty wrong with the AMR26; the faltering Honda engine and the severe vibrations are the most obvious areas for improvement. For now, it seems wishful thinking to expect Aston Martin to have everything fully sorted in the short term, although Vandoorne naturally hopes there will be progress.

The Belgian, who's been Aston Martin’s reserve and test driver for years, told GPblog that ‘it certainly hasn’t been an easy start to the year.’ “I think it probably won’t change overnight. It’s going to be quite a long process, but we knew it certainly wouldn’t be easy, with all the changes we have,” said the former McLaren driver.

At Honda’s Japanese factory and at Aston Martin’s factory in Silverstone, intensive work is underway on updates and improvements. Now it’s a matter of seeing when the results of that will become noticeable. “It’s a bit difficult to put a timeline on that at the moment,” Vandoorne added.

Updates are expected at least for the next Grand Prix in Miami. Those could help improve the drivability of Fernando Alonso’s and Lance Stroll’s car. The team is not expecting a significant points haul at the upcoming race in the American city.