Honda admits it had realised performance and reliability will be issue back in January
New Delhi: had one of its biggest overhauls, and expectations were high at Aston Martin. With a state-of-the-art factory in Silverstone, the genius of designer Adrian Newey, and a partnership with Honda, it looked like it would have great success this season.
It might be something they will prove in the longer run, but so far it has been challenging times at the Aston Martin paddock. Mike Krack recently even noted that the team was hardly racing before the summer break. The gap to newcomer Cadillac was just about one second.
Aston Martin’s AMR26 started showing signs of improvement following its big upgrade package in Hungary, though the chassis was only one part of the equation. Honda, which officially returned to F1 this season, has faced major issues with things like new power units, including early vibration issues, inconsistent performance and reliability concerns.
In an interview with Motorsport.com, Honda trackside manager and chief engineer Shintaro Orihara revealed that the scale of these issues only became glaring in January. While development at the end of last season looked promising, engineers soon found fluctuations in performance along with reliability concerns.
Honda dialled back on performance to keep cars reliable
Since reliability remained the priority, Honda had to dial down some of the performance gains, slowing overall progress. The situation became absolutely clear during the pre-season testing in Barcelona, where Honda realised its power unit lagged behind rival makers. Battery-related issues further complicated building, which in turn cost track time that Aston Martin and Honda desperately needed to gather data and close the gap.
Orihara noted that even though Honda knew it wasn’t at par with the competition last season but deficit at the start of 2026 was even worse than expected. He explained that the difficulties stem from the sweeping changes introduced under the new Formula 1 regulations rather than any single component. One of the biggest changes is the increase in MGU-K output from about 120kW to 350kW, alongside revised fuel-flow regulations for the internal combustion engine. Honda says adapting to these simultaneous changes has been its biggest challenge engineering-wose.
The removal of the MGU-H has also brought big drivability issues. In turn, it is more difficult to maintain the desired turbo boost pressure. As per Orihara, much of the drivability problems experienced by Aston Martin and Honda this season can be traced back to this regulation change.
To address its performance deficit, Honda has prepared an internal combustion engine upgrade that is scheduled to debut at the Dutch Grand Prix in Zandvoort. The revised engine has already undergone initial evaluation during a filming day at the Hungaroring and is expected to mark the first step in Honda’s long-term recovery plan.