Jak Crawford admits Aston Martin AMR26 vibrations ‘not good’ after Suzuka experience

Jak Crawford admitted that the Aston Martin AMR26 vibrations are not good for the drivers or car, but believes the issue has been “getting better”.

Crawford, Aston Martin’s reserve driver, replaced Fernando Alonso for the opening hour of practice at Suzuka. The 20-year-old, from Charlotte, North Carolina in the United States, said a key reason behind this unusually early rookie FP1 session was to help Aston Martin judge the correlation between simulator and the real world.

Jak Crawford says Aston Martin vibrations ‘not good’ but improving

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Crawford participated in his first FP1 session of the F1 2026 season on Friday at the Japanese Grand Prix. He stepped into Fernando Alonso’s AMR26, on the day that Aston Martin confirmed Alonso was now a father.

When it comes to Aston Martin, a major early F1 2026 talking point has been that of vibration issues in the car. Honda said ahead of the race weekend that it had made progress on the vibrations which were compromising battery reliability. However, it was still looking for solutions to driver discomfort caused by vibrations.

After taking part in FP1, Crawford headed up to the Sky F1 commentary box during the second hour of practice. This his first time in the real-life AMR26, he was asked how bad the vibrations are.

He said: “I mean, they are what they are. It’s not easy. It’s not good for the drivers. It’s not good for the reliability of the car.

“But, we’re trying to work on them every single weekend.

“As a driver, what can you do when it’s not our fault.

“They’re just trying to work on it as much as possible, and it’s been getting better. So just trying to keep getting better.”

In conversation with the Formula 1 website, Crawford stated that he quickly felt up to speed in the car.

He was the slowest driver of FP1, but only completed 11 laps, and lacked a representative performance run.

“It was great,” he said of the experience. “My first time in the car, first time here at the circuit. Enjoyed every lap of the few amount of laps I did.

“But yeah, really enjoyed it today, and I felt quite quickly up to speed, which was good and positive in case I of course need to ever jump in again. I feel ready, and I feel quite quick up to speed.”

Aston Martin’s choice to use a first of four rookie FP1 sessions for the year at Suzuka, was a little surprising.

This is only Round 3 of the season, and the full-time drivers are still learning how to best make use of these new era Formula 1 cars.

When put to Crawford that it is important for him to get actual track time, after his simulator work, for correlation, Crawford explained how this formed a large part of the reasoning behind his Suzuka FP1 appearance.

“Yeah, that’s my main role, and I think also, another reason why we wanted to do a free practice session for me so early in the year, was to have that simulator correlation.

“It’s great to have that for us.

“I do feel that all the simulator laps I’ve done really, really helped me be straight on it today in FP1, so it’s good to see that correlates.”

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Crawford was asked what feedback Alonso and Lance Stroll had been giving for FP2, as Alonso returned to the cockpit.

“A bit more of the same,” he said. “I think it’s a track that we kind of expected to struggle at, seeing the current limitations of the package we have.

“I’m keen to hear more on the debrief here soon. Seems like we’re struggling a bit, but I think it’s expected.”

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