Honda chief reveals key to ‘unlock lap time’ for Aston Martin ahead of Canadian GP

Honda has said its “important target” for the Canadian Grand Prix is to give Lance Stroll and Fernando Alonso “more confidence” which the engine supplier believes will “unlock lap time.”

The start of Honda’s new relationship with Aston has been a rough one with mass staff turnover blamed for an underperforming engine and while it is unlikely the team will be a title challenger anytime soon, the power unit has improved since the opening race.

Honda chief details plan for Canadian GP

The beginning of Aston’s season was plagued by vibrations that threatened to cause long-term damage to the two drivers but as the races have gone on, and more data has been gathered, that issue has subsided.

Following the Japanese Grand Prix, Aston left an AMR26 in the country for Honda to use to combat the vibration and a significant improvement was seen in Miami.

Now, looking ahead to Canada, Honda’s Trackside General Manager and Chief Engineer Shintaro Orihara confirmed those improvements and said the next step was confidence with the car.

“At the Miami Grand Prix, we confirmed our battery vibration improvements and our overall power unit reliability,” he said. “It was also a key opportunity to learn on the energy management side under the updated 2026 regulations, and this will continue in Canada.

“In Montreal, which is Lance’s home race, we will focus on enhancing the driveability and our energy management strategy to support the drivers in building more confidence.

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“In fact, this is an important target of our race weekend. If we can give more confidence to the drivers in entering the corners faster and carrying more speed, then we unlock lap time.”

As for what comes next, in Miami Alonso highlighted the gearbox as the next focus for improvement.

“No issues,” he said, after finishing 15th. “Honestly, it was more the gearbox the whole weekend than the engine, so I don’t know the electronics or something.

“It was very weird on the downshifts and the upshifts, so not very well in control.

“So that’s the fix number one for Canada. I think with all these heavy braking in Canada, we need to improve the gearbox behaviour at the moment.

“I think we will make a step on that drivability point of view,” he said. “Performance, not. So, we need to stick together with the team.

“Now it’s going to be very tough races. It’s going to feel repetitive. Obviously, we need to face the media every Thursday, Friday, Saturday and Sunday.

“You do your job, and we drive fast, but seems repetitive, the message. We have no upgrades until after summer.”

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