---
title: "All about Aston Martin's Honda woes in 2026"
publishDate: 2026-03-25T09:19:53.064Z
lastUpdated: 2026-03-25T12:00:44.035Z
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## Honda's withdrawal and the staff exodus
In October 2020, Honda announced it would leave Formula 1 at the end of 2021. The reason was corporate, not competitive. Honda wanted to redirect resources towards carbon neutrality.
It was a strange moment. Honda had just powered Max Verstappen to three wins that season, and the engine was the best it had ever been.
Red Bull scrambled. They set up Red Bull Powertrains, an in-house engine division backed by Ford. Millions were invested. Engineers were hired, many from Mercedes' power unit facility in Brixworth. By the time Honda changed its mind, it was too late.
Honda's U-turn came towards the end of 2022. The 2026 regulations, with their 50/50 split between combustion and electrical power and sustainable fuels, aligned with the goals that had driven them out in the first place. But there was a cost to the hiatus.
During that gap, Honda's core F1 team had dissolved. Engineers moved to other divisions or left entirely. Adrian Newey later put it bluntly in Melbourne.
– When they reformed, a lot of the original group had, it now transpires, disbanded, gone to work on solar panels or whatever.
The people who built Verstappen's championship-winning engines were gone. Honda was starting over.
## The Aston Martin partnership
In May 2023, Honda and Aston Martin announced an exclusive works deal for 2026. On paper, it looked like a masterstroke. Aston Martin would swap their customer Mercedes engines for a full factory partnership. Honda brought a recent track record of four consecutive drivers' titles with Red Bull.
Lawrence Stroll was building something ambitious at Silverstone. A new factory. A wind tunnel. And in March 2025, Adrian Newey arrived from Red Bull to lead the technical side.
But Honda were already behind. Their head of power unit development, Satoshi Tsunoda, later admitted the late start was crippling.
– Of course, we were handicapped in that we were unable to begin full-scale development until we announced our return.
To make things harder, the FIA had introduced a separate cost cap for power unit manufacturers in 2023. Rivals like Mercedes and Ferrari had been developing freely through 2021 and 2022 with full continuity and no spending limit. Honda entered the race for 2026 late, short-staffed, and financially constrained.
## Newey's demands and the November shock
When Newey joined Aston Martin in March 2025, he requested significant changes to the power unit's packaging. He wanted components reshaped to fit his chassis concept, including a redesigned battery in a more compact two-tier layout. Honda obliged, but the work ate into a schedule that was already tight.
None of this was public at the time. The full scale of Honda's problems only surfaced in November 2025, when rumours out of Japan suggested the engine would not hit its original power targets for the opening race. Stroll, Newey and Andy Cowell flew to Tokyo to see the situation for themselves.
What they found went beyond a power deficit. Newey later said Aston Martin had been [completely unaware](https://www.the-race.com/formula-1/adrian-newey-latest-claim-about-honda-f1-project-is-very-confusing/) that Honda's reformed team was largely made up of engineers with no prior F1 experience. The staff who had built Verstappen's title-winning engines were not there. This was, in many ways, a new operation wearing an old name.
Cowell, who had been serving as team principal, stepped aside so Newey could take direct control of the crisis.
## Pre-season testing in Bahrain
Aston Martin arrived late to the Barcelona shakedown in January 2026, getting on track on day four of five. In Bahrain, things got worse.
Across six days of testing, Aston Martin [covered 2,111 kilometres](https://tarmactimes.com/en/f1/articles/2026-bahrain-pre-season-testing--week-2--day-3-recap/dpfmx4). For context, here is what the rest of the grid managed:
| Team | Total pre-season km |
| --- | --- |
| Mercedes | 6,193 |
| Haas | 6,095 |
| Ferrari | 6,090 |
| McLaren | 5,759 |
| Racing Bulls | 5,458 |
| Alpine | 5,289 |
| Red Bull | 5,048 |
| Audi | 4,966 |
| Williams | 4,275 |
| Cadillac | 3,935 |
| Aston Martin | 2,111 |
The core issue was vibrations from the engine damaging the battery. Honda's Koji Watanabe confirmed the problem directly.
– During the Bahrain pre-season test, we experienced unexpected vibration, which caused damage to battery-related components.
To protect the battery, Aston Martin ran the engine conservatively. According to [Motorsport.com](https://www.motorsport.com/f1/news/f1-aston-how-many-outlets-to-let-the-honda-pu-breathe-on-an-extreme-amr26/10796982/), Stroll never exceeded 300 km/h on the main straight, and the engine stayed below 11,000 RPM for extended periods while rivals pushed well beyond that.
On Thursday of the second test, 50 minutes into the afternoon session, Alonso stopped at the exit of Turn 4 in sector 1. The engine was heard revving heavily as the car lost power. Honda confirmed a battery-related failure. Alonso did not return.
The failure was quite dramatic. [See video of Alonso's Honda engine failure](https://youtu.be/rz5YsqjZSkc).
The next day, Stroll managed six laps before Aston Martin confirmed their pre-season programme was over. They had run out of parts.
## Australia: two batteries and a nerve damage warning
Aston Martin arrived in Melbourne with two working batteries. No spares existed.
In a press conference that raised eyebrows across the paddock, Newey revealed that both Alonso and Stroll feared permanent nerve damage from the vibrations if they completed more than 25 laps. Stroll thought his limit was closer to 15. Some paddock sources were sceptical, suggesting the comments were designed to keep pressure on Honda.
The race itself was grim. Alonso retired on lap 15, came back out to gather data, then retired for good on lap 37. Stroll managed 43 laps, exceeding expectations, but neither car was competitive. They were classified 17th and 18th.
What drew the most attention was not the result but what Newey said afterwards. In the press conference, with Honda executive Koji Watanabe sitting beside him, Newey publicly laid the blame on Honda. The "solar panels" comment. The repeated emphasis on their inexperience. The tutting and sighing that cameras picked up throughout.
It was a performance that unsettled people. Will Buxton, now a full-time IndyCar commentator, drew a direct line to McLaren's doomed Honda partnership a decade earlier.
– If you're going to pin all the blame on Honda, that's exactly what McLaren did. And by the time Honda found their feet, Honda had had enough of McLaren, had gone to Red Bull, and Red Bull reaped the rewards.
## China: hands off the wheel
One week later in Shanghai, nothing had improved.
Stroll retired on lap 9 with a suspected battery issue. Alonso lasted until lap 32 before pulling over. The reason was not mechanical. He simply could not hold on any longer.
Onboard footage, not shown on the world feed at the time, [revealed the extent of it](https://www.espn.com/f1/story/_/id/48213274/chinese-grand-prix-fernando-alonso-feeling-struggle-aston-martin). Alonso was taking his hands off the steering wheel on the straights, shaking them to try and restore feeling. Down the main straight. On the approach to the back straight. Before Turn 7.
After the race, Alonso was frank about the physical toll and the compromises they had been making.
– From lap 20 to 35, I was struggling a little bit to feel my hands and my feet.
He explained that the team had been artificially lowering the engine's RPM to reduce vibrations during practice and the sprint. But in a race, you cannot stay conservative forever.
– You still need to go high in some of the RPM when you make an overtake move, or when you have to recharge. Over time, it's more difficult. It's more demanding.
When a Cadillac breezed past him during the race, Alonso gave it a sarcastic wave. His summary of the competitive picture was typically dry.
– On lap one, the car seems to start really well. We all have the same level of battery, which is full. Then we enter into this battery world championship and on this we are not good.
Stroll, asked about the next race at Suzuka, Honda's home grand prix, kept it to three words: "Pray for us."
## Honda's response and Newey's exit as team principal
Through all of this, Honda have been publicly measured. But Newey's Melbourne comments did not go unnoticed in Japan.
Honda pointed out that when Newey arrived at Aston Martin in March 2025, he requested major changes to the power unit's packaging. The two-tier battery layout that has caused so many problems was built to his specification. Honda obliged, but it cost them time they did not have.
Aston Martin had their own delays too. The chassis did not enter the wind tunnel until mid-April 2025, roughly four months after competitors. At the Barcelona shakedown, the car was not ready until day four of five. Neither of those had anything to do with Honda.
The fallout from Melbourne has already reshaped the team's leadership. Newey is stepping back from the team principal role to focus on technical matters.
Jonathan Wheatley, who left Audi with immediate effect last week, is widely expected to replace him. Within Aston Martin, there is reportedly an acceptance that Newey is not suited to the public-facing demands of the position.
## Aston Martin and Honda after two rounds
Two races into the 2026 season, Aston Martin have zero finishes. The vibration problem remains unsolved at its source. Honda have improved the battery's ability to survive, but the drivers are still suffering physically.
Suzuka is next. Honda's home race. Japanese media report that Honda's first significant power unit improvement is expected there. Whether it will be enough to get both cars to the chequered flag is an open question.
Alonso, 44 years old and almost certainly in his final F1 seasons, finds himself in an uncomfortable echo of 2015. A works Honda partnership that cannot deliver.
The question is whether Honda can recover fast enough for the season to be anything more than damage limitation. They have done it before. After McLaren, they rebuilt and powered Verstappen to four titles. That recovery took years, though, and Alonso does not have years left.