(Motorsport-Total.com) – Ahead of the major technical reform in Formula 1, expectations at Aston Martin were high. With a state-of-the-art factory in Silverstone, the legendary designer Adrian Newey, and a works partnership with Honda, all the ingredients for success seemed to be in place.
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That may prove true in the long term, but the start of the new era was much more difficult than expected. Mike Krack recently admitted that Aston Martin had hardly engaged in real racing before the summer break – simply because the gap to the newcomer Cadillac was around one second.
That changed when the AMR26 received its first major update package in Hungary, although the chassis is of course only half the battle. Honda has also encountered numerous hurdles since its official return to Formula 1 – starting with vibrations that troubled the drivers in the opening weeks of the season, up to a significant deficit in pure power.
In an exclusive interview with the global language edition of Motorsport.com, a sister platform of Motorsport-Total.com in the Motorsport Network, team principal and chief engineer Shintaro Orihara explains that the full extent of these problems only became clear in January.
“Towards the end of last year, our position was not too bad. Performance and drivability were still in development, but it looked okay,” he says.
“But in January we realized that in some areas – not exactly problems, but we noticed that the performance kept fluctuating: up, down, up, down. So we found some power, but at the same time encountered reliability issues.”
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Since reliability is always the top priority, Honda had to take a step back on some power increases to ensure durability at this level. Naturally, this slowed down the entire development.
“In January, it became clear to us that our performance and reliability would not be competitive. When we started testing in Barcelona, we noticed that our performance was definitely weak compared to the other manufacturers. And we also encountered some problems in the battery area,” he admits.
These battery-related problems made the development process even more complex. They cost valuable track time during the winter tests – something that was especially painful as Aston Martin and Honda urgently needed to gather data to catch up on their deficit.
“So we realized that we were in a bad starting position, maybe at the beginning of this year. Last year, towards the end of last year, we had already seen that we were not competitive, but we did not expect it to be this bad,” Orihara admits.
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What was Honda’s biggest challenge?
Part of the explanation is that Honda’s current Formula 1 project differs greatly from the successful years with Red Bull – which is related to the company philosophy of transferring Formula 1 knowledge to other business areas.
Another part of the explanation, according to Honda, is the complexity of the current regulations. Orihara emphasizes that before 2026 there was not one stumbling block, but rather the combination of all the changes introduced simultaneously.
“It is hard to say which component of the power unit is the most challenging, as almost everything has changed significantly in this regulation. For example, the power of the MGU-K changed from say [120] to 350 kilowatts. That is a significant change.”
“But also on the combustion engine side, we changed the fuel flow rate,” he adds. “So in this regulation, everything has changed so extremely. The real challenge for Honda is simply the combination of a variety of changes happening at the same time.”
This means that Honda lacks the pure power of the combustion engine. The long-awaited Zandvoort update is intended to specifically counter this problem. It is intended as a first step to reduce the still considerable power deficit of the brand.
On the electric side of the power unit, the focus is on efficiency. However, Orihara explains that the changes also had massive effects on drivability – one of the issues that Honda and Aston Martin have repeatedly dealt with in the first months of the season.
“The omission of the MGU-H was also quite a challenge on the power unit side. This is probably the most exciting point for the engine manufacturers. I have repeatedly mentioned drivability. This is perhaps not mainly, but largely because the MGU-H has been removed.”
“So it is a difficult task for us as a power unit supplier to keep the boost pressure at a target value. Again: It is hard to pick out a single component that was the most challenging for us, but it was the combination of all the changes at the same time.”
Although Honda knows that returning to the targeted performance level will take time – and a lot of time – they hope to take a first step in Zandvoort. This update focuses purely on improving the combustion engine and was already tested during a filming day at the Hungaroring.