Honda admits ‘inactivity’ delay hurting Aston Martin F1 2026 engine push

Honda HRC President Koji Watanabe said the impact is being felt of a period of “inactivity” before ramping up its Formula 1 return programme.

Honda reversed its decision to leave Formula 1 and aligned with Aston Martin. The F1 2026 pre-season proved extremely challenging, and Watanabe says Honda is currently suffering for the delay in getting to work on the new F1 engine.

Honda feeling impact of F1 engine project delay

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Honda had been supplying Red Bull at the point of deciding to withdraw from Formula 1. But, the new engine formula tempted Honda back to the sport. It has partnered up with Aston Martin for this new F1 2026 era.

However, Aston Martin completed only 400 laps across the Barcelona and Bahrain tests. Honda is working on a fix for the vibration issues which hampered much of Aston’s Bahrain test. The season-opening Australian GP will demonstrate the success of this fix.

Honda eventually overcame a challenging start to its first F1 turbo-hybrid engine project. Results and reliability alongside McLaren were disappointing, though Honda went on to power six world championship wins after linking-up with Red Bull.

Bernie Collins, formerly of McLaren and Aston Martin, has claimed via Sky F1, that the Aston Martin and Honda situation is “definitely better” than when McLaren first bolted in a Honda engine, at the end-of-season 2014 Abu Dhabi test.

However, she also claimed that “someone said that when Honda decided to pull out, they basically started stripping the factory. So when they decided to come back, it was starting from an empty factory again, so that has significantly slowed the process.”

While speaking at an annual Honda press conference in Tokyo, Watanabe spoke of a gap between the 2026 engine regulations being finalised, and getting a new engineering team together.

He suggested that Honda is feeling the effects of this “inactivity.”

“We ended full-works participation in 2021, and our engineers returned to mass-production and other roles,” said Watanabe. “Many engineers left in March 2022. Only mechanics and a small number of engineers remained to support RB.

“So in reality, there was a period of inactivity.

“We were approved to re-enter in 2023 and began bringing people back from that point, so it is true that there was a period of inactivity. The impact of that is, frankly, being felt.

“When the broad framework of the new regulations was finalised in 2022, we did not have the necessary personnel in place. In addition, there was no cost cap restriction in 2022, and our engineers only began returning from 2023, when the cost cap came into effect for us.

“To put it precisely, there was a time lag in bringing the engineers back.”

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Honda Racing Corporation’s managing director Ikuo Takeishi added: “There was a real time lag in bringing people back. And because of the cost cap, we were structurally behind.

“This timing issue, along with the cost-cap constraints, contributed to our delayed start.

“It’s something I reflect on.”

Aston Martin and Honda head into the unknown at the season-opening Australian Grand Prix, with the outcome of its engine reliability fix set to dictate the course of the race weekend for this debuting partnership.

Additional reporting by Oliver Harden

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