Adrian Newey reveals when Aston Martin first discovered Honda’s 2026 issues

Adrian Newey has revealed when Aston Martin first became aware of Honda’s issues ahead of the new regulation cycle.

Aston Martin is facing a very difficult start to the F1 2026 season, with reliability issues stemming from the Honda power unit preventing the AMR26 from racking up the mileage the team needs to start focusing on performance.

Adrian Newey explains Aston Martin discovery of Honda 2026 problems

Want more PlanetF1.com coverage? Add us as a preferred source on Google to your favourites list for news you can trust.

Having accrued just 400 laps of testing data across the pre-season, Aston Martin is entering the new regulation cycle on the back foot as Honda’s power unit is suffering from extensive reliability issues.

These issues appear to stem from excessive battery pack shaking, with Honda revealing last week that it is working hard to identify a root cause for these problems.

On Thursday, team boss Adrian Newey offered an alarming assessment of the extent of the issues, revealing that the vibrations are so severe that the two drivers believe there is a risk of nerve damage once a certain amount of consecutive laps is completed – Lance Stroll reckoning this to be about 15 laps, while Fernando Alonso believes it’s around 25 laps.

However, paddock sources have played down the possibility that Aston Martin’s drivers risk permanent damage from extended stints behind the wheel, with the suggestion being that such claims are a means of keeping pressure up on Honda to improve its driveability and reliability.

An attempt at a reliability fix is being introduced for this weekend’s action in Australia, with Aston Martin working with Honda to try to mitigate the vibrations through the chassis and start building up to a more stable platform to begin its season properly.

After the second practice, sources have indicated to PlanetF1.com that the reliability concern regarding the battery vibrations, specifically, has reduced.

“FP2 today was valuable for us, as we were able to see the effects of our countermeasures,” confirmed Shintaro Orihara, Honda’s trackside general manager and chief engineer.

“With Lance and Fernando completing a combined 31 laps, we were able to gather the necessary data to determine that the items we implemented first on the dyno at HRC Sakura are working at the track.

“As a result, there are less battery vibrations occurring according to our analysis gathered during the session.”

Speaking in the FIA press conference on Friday, Newey revealed the extent of the battery issues. With just two batteries left in stock, the two fitted in the AMR26s, and no further supply possible, the extent of Aston Martin’s participation this weekend isn’t yet known, but the prognosis isn’t positive, as a double retirement is expected during the Grand Prix.

Aston Martin had shown up in Melbourne with four batteries, two of which were removed from circulation after first practice due to conditioning issues. This rate of consumption, Newey pointed out, is “quite a scary place to be in”.

With the finger being firmly pointed at Honda for the shortcomings in reliability, the Japanese manufacturer has largely accepted this status quo, although it has pointed out that late changes to the chassis implementation, requested by Newey, could have played a role in creating the unprecedented level of vibration.

Newey said Aston Martin was completely unaware of Honda’s overall lack of readiness until quite close to the end of the F1 2025 season, when rumours out of Japan started to hint at the troubles the manufacturer was in.

“Honda pulled out at the end of 2021,” he said, when asked if Honda had indicated to Newey as to why it appears to be so under-prepared.

“They then re-entered the sport, kind of, at the end of 2022, so over roughly a year, a year and a bit, out of competition.

“When they reformed, a lot of the original group had, it now transpires, disbanded and gone to work on solar panels or whatever, and so a lot of the group that reformed are actually fresh to Formula 1. They didn’t bring the experience that they had had previously.

“Plus, when they came back in 2023, that was the first year of the budget cap introduction for engines, so all their rivals had been developing away through ’21, ’22 with continuity, their existing team, and free of the budget cap.

“They re-entered with, let’s say, only, I’m guessing, 30 per cent of their original team, and now in a budget cap era, so they started very much on the back foot, and unfortunately, they’ve struggled to catch back up.”

As for whether Aston Martin had been made aware of this state of play when the deal between Lawrence Stroll and Honda was first agreed in ’23, Newey said, “No, we weren’t.

“We only really became aware of it in November of last year when Lawrence, Andy Cowell, and I went to Tokyo to discuss rumours starting to suggest that their original target power they wouldn’t achieve for race one, and out of that came the fact that many of the original workforce had not returned when they restarted. So, no is the answer.”

While Honda is now the most likely power unit manufacturer to be granted more development changes this year under the newly-introduced ADUO [Additional Development and Upgrade Opportunities] safety net, Newey urged Honda to start working on its 2027 power unit as he said it’s “very clear” a “very large step in combustion engine power” is needed as their sole focus.

More on Aston Martin

Adrian Newey feels ‘powerless’ as Aston Martin left with two Honda batteries

Lance Stroll compares driving Aston Martin AMR26 to being ‘electrocuted’

Mike Krack: How Aston Martin is taking the positives

Aston Martin was unable to take part in first practice in any meaningful capacity, as Alonso sat out the session entirely while Lance Stroll performed three extremely slow laps.

The situation improved in the second session, with Alonso completing 18 laps en route to 20th place, 4.9 seconds off the front-running pace. Stroll managed 13 laps, but was forced to withdraw back to the pits with an issue.

But, with both cars showing sufficient pace to qualify, chief trackside officer Mike Krack pointed to the hard work and dedication being shown by the garage crews, who built up the car through Wednesday after the FIA removed initial curfew limitations in light of travel disruptions brought on by the conflict in the Middle East.

“Yes, you have to. It’s a long season, 24 races, or 24 events,” Krack said, when asked about the need to cling to the positives of the situation Aston Martin is currently in.

“We knew, coming here, that it was going to be difficult. But we are racers and want to have the cars ready in the morning.

“With curfew coming, we now have to get through some technical decisions quickly, how we go with the car tomorrow and then try to fix them as quickly as possible.”

With parc ferme conditions set to kick in at the start of qualifying, Krack said Aston Martin will explore its options to see what it can do to try getting through the rest of the weekend.

“We have to see, tomorrow is qualifying preparation,” he said.

“So we need to look at what we have, the data we have accumulated today, and then go with the best possible configuration, [which is] probably the most durable. But I’m sure we will take the right decisions.”

Given that the rest of the Formula 1 field is in a position to chase optimisation of their cars, exploring the limits of what’s possible, as opposed to Aston Martin’s predicament of just trying to establish a stable platform, Krack said there’s little point in giving that thought any mental space.

“In Formula 1, we have become so used to having safe and reliable cars that the focus is only on performance, because, also operationally, all the teams are on a very high level,” he said.

“This is the new territory. You have a car that is not so reliable, and you lose a lot of time, and then, that time when others can work on performance, you cannot.

“So you need to make it reliable first. That is a time that is not nice for anyone, but I think there’s no magic to get out of it.

“We made a very small step this afternoon, and we could do a couple of laps; this morning, we couldn’t do any.

“So it is a very small step, but it is one, yeah. We have seen with a couple of laps that we did this afternoon, we have learned already a lot.”

Want more PlanetF1.com coverage? Add us as a preferred source on Google to your favourites list for news you can trust.

You can also subscribe to the PlanetF1 YouTube channel for exclusive features, hear from our paddock journalists with stories from the heart of Formula 1 and much more!

Read Next: Adrian Newey feels ‘powerless’ as Aston Martin left with two Honda batteries