Yup. 🙂
Like all modern washing machines the AW23 has an out of balance sensor that, when you wash small loads, will be thinking that there is a potential danger from an out of balance spin. It therefore will not spin up to it’s full speed.
Sadly, there is no way around it other than to add “ballast” with almost any machine that spins over about 1100rpm.
The reason being that the clothing tends to sit in one area of the drum and, if it did spin up, you’d get excessive vibration and you could risk damage to the machine from the drum travel being too great.
HTH
K.