Honda president blames two-year absence for Aston Martin struggles

The President of Honda Racing Corporation, Koji Watanabe, has pointed to a two-year gap in the company’s F1 history as the cause behind Aston Martin’s struggles this season.

Aston had hoped becoming a works team of the Japanese supplier, who has won six World Constructors’ Championships as an independent engine supplier, but instead find themselves in the midst of a crisis.

Honda president pinpoints delay in engine manufacturing

The Japanese Grand Prix is usually a day to celebrate in Honda’s calendar but their employees will have been looking at this weekend with a sense of regret given how far behind the competition their engine is.

In FP2, Fernando Alonso finished 19th having missed FP1 due to birth of his first child while Lance Stroll was second last, ahead of only Arvid Lindblad who completed a solitary lap.

Ahead of that session, Watanabe appeared in the team representative press conferences and was asked what the main issue with the power unit was. The long-time Honda man said a gap in their F1 production was behind it.

“Well, we are starting a new season with Aston Martin Aramco and, as you know, we are struggling in on-track performance at this moment,” he said. “I believe that there are several reasons.

“The first one is that, yes, of course, the new power regulation is quite challenging for us. The second one is that we stopped the Formula 1 activities at the end of 2021 and announced to return to Formula 1 in 2023, so there is some period that during that period our Formula 1 activity was quite limited.

“It also took a bit of time for us to rebuild the organisation to restart Formula 1 development. But now we are working closely with Aston Martin Aramco, not only technical area but also overall area, how we can build a strong partnership together with them.

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“So, Aston Martin Aramco and Honda is not only just F1 constructor and power manufacturer, but also, we are working closely as one team.

“Actually, in our facility in Japan, the engineers from Aston Martin Aramco are really working hard closely with our engineers in Sakura, working together. So, I think most important is that we can keep moving forward step by step.”

As for what the team has improved since the last race, Watanabe said they had a “recovery plan” and that improving the source of the vibration had been the main focus.

“At this moment we are focused on how we can improve the situation of vibration, mainly damage to battery area, but also this time for Suzuka we have improved energy management situation for more driving performance.

“We have some recovery plan together with Aston Martin, but we cannot tell that today.”

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