Honda confirms Italian GP ‘key focus’ after post-Zandvoort engine push

Honda has been working tirelessly back at base on its upgraded engine, which debuted at Zandvoort, ahead of this week’s Italian Grand Prix.

Honda’s chief engineer Shintaro Orihara confirmed that the “key focus” for the Japanese manufacturer at Monza is to improve driveability, after Aston Martin’s Fernando Alonso expressed concerns on that front at Zandvoort.

Honda reveals fresh engine push ahead of Monza

After a Hungaroring filming day and much speculation about powered gained, the B-spec Honda engine arrived in the back of the Aston Martin AMR26 at Zandvoort.

Alonso secured his and Aston Martin’s best result of the season with P9, but was left underwhelmed with the driveability of Honda’s new creation.

“I don’t think we can be black and white on if we have more power or not from the driver side of things,” he told PlanetF1.com and other media outlets.

“On the driveability, it has been a difficult weekend. We’re struggling with the downshift again and we’re struggling with the engine braking corner to corner, so it was a challenging weekend in that regard.”

Alonso added to AS: “We’ll have to wait a bit longer with the engine.

“I don’t think this weekend has yielded the result we were hoping for. We don’t have that handling, that gear-shifting feel. Everything we’d improved with the first engine; we’ve gone back a bit to square one with this second one, so we’ve got about two or three races ahead of us to optimise it.”

Alonso will be pleased to hear that Honda has not sat still between Zandvoort and Monza.

Orihara confirmed that the “key focus” for Honda at Monza is driveability, with extensive work having taken place at Honda’s Sakura HQ in the lead-up.

“Monza is a unique circuit with one of the highest full-throttle ratios on the 2026 calendar, with its long straights and only 11 corners,” said Orihara via Honda’s social media channels.

“At this track, how you distribute the limited energy across these sections becomes crucial.

“Our key focus at the Italian Grand Prix is to improve driveability.

“Since the Dutch Grand Prix, we have been working a lot on the dyno at HRC Sakura to improve this and, specifically, to achieve stable and consistent combustion control.”

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Honda’s new engine was described as “a good step forward” after the Dutch GP by Aston Martin’s chief trackside officer Mike Krack, who believes there is still work to be done in optimising both the B-spec engine and AMR26 chassis.

Additional reporting by Thomas Maher

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