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Honda’s efforts in F1 with Aston Martin have started on entirely the wrong foot, and former engineer Yasuaki Asaki believes the collaboration’s poor start comes down to the Japanese engine manufacturer’s workforce being ‘ill-equipped’ for the sport.
To put it simply, Honda’s current Formula 1 power unit, which has been built in line with the 2026 rulebook, is a far cry from the engines that powered Red Bull to four consecutive drivers’ titles between 2021 and 2024.
Yasuaki Asaki served as Honda’s head of power unit development during the era and has been hailed as one of the leading figures in the Japanese manufacturer’s success with Red Bull.
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However, upon his exit from HRC in 2023, Honda’s engines haven’t quite been the same. Towards the end of Red Bull’s collaboration with the Sakura-based manufacturers, they reportedly knew that Honda weren’t ‘good enough’ anymore.
Lawrence Stroll’s decision to bring Honda into the fold at Aston Martin has since come under scrutiny. The Silverstone-based team had utilised Mercedes power in recent years, and so their shift away from the most dominant engine in 2026 can be seen as a major blunder.
Yasuaki Asaki claims Honda’s current workforce is ‘ill-equipped’ for F1
In a recent interview with Web Sportiva, Asaki detailed several factors that he thinks have contributed to Honda’s highly disappointing start to their collaboration with Aston Martin.
The first element that Asaki pointed out was regarding the level of innovation that he has seen come out of HRC’s Sakura base since he departed from their efforts in the midst of Max Verstappen’s success at Red Bull.
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“Winning cleanly by strictly adhering to the regulations… That’s a beautiful story, but I completely reject that,” he said, before adding, “Even if I’m called underhanded, I’m determined to win no matter what.
“When I was the head of PU development at Honda, that was the attitude we took, and we were able to beat Mercedes and become world champions.”
Another detail that he focused on was the actual calibre of employees that Honda currently accommodates.
“Another factor I sense is that there are fewer ‘eccentric individuals’ with cutting-edge talent within Honda these days,” Asaki continued. “Honda used to be full of such people, starting with its founder, Soichiro Honda.
“Unbound by convention, they repeatedly took reckless risks, becoming world champions in F1 and creating things the world had never seen before, growing from a start-up into a major corporation.
“Even during my second stint at Honda, there were heaps of ‘eccentrics’, including a young upstart like myself who would challenge the head of the racing division at the time.
“However, the company has now become popular with graduates, and we’ve started seeing a flood of highly educated, top-tier students joining our ranks.”
As such, Asaki strongly believes that Honda’s shift in their recruitment policy has had a detrimental effect on the company’s efforts in the pinnacle of single-seater racing as a whole.
“Rather than hiring eccentrics, we’ve started prioritising students who are intelligent and possess common sense. When this continues for over a decade, it shapes the corporate culture.
“Gradually, the space for mavericks to thrive has shrunk. I feel we have ended up with a workforce full of people who are excellent as office workers—smart and capable of carrying out instructions to the letter—but who are ill-equipped to fight.”
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