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Honda chief engineer Shintaro Orihara has outlined the ‘two main reasons’ that led to the Japanese engine manufacturer’s struggles in supplying Aston Martin with a competitive power unit for the 2026 F1 season.
The Silverstone-based constructor remains at the bottom of the F1 standings as we head into the sixth round of the season at Monaco, with both cars only seeing the chequered flag on one occasion: at the Miami Grand Prix.
Did Aston Martin make a mistake dropping Mercedes as engine partners for Honda?
It became clear in pre-season that Honda were struggling with a ‘major’ issue that could set Aston Martin back ‘for months’, with reports of engine vibrations emerging after Fernando Alonso and Lance Stroll’s first installation laps in the AMR26.
The prediction has since come to fruition, with Honda engineers now focusing solely on the power unit’s reliability, before even thinking of improving performance. In that regard, HRC are all but guaranteed to benefit from F1’s ADUO initiative.
Still, Aston Martin’s lack of competitiveness during the early stages of the 2026 campaign has been thoroughly disappointing for fans, who were eager to see what Adrian Newey had up his sleeve for the legendary aerodynamacist’s first iteration of an Aston Martin F1 car.
- READ MORE: Ex-Honda man says HRC weren’t brave enough to stop Adrian Newey’s Aston Martin ‘disaster’
Shintaro Orihara attributes Honda’s engine issues to ‘two main reasons’
In an interview with Web Sportiva ahead of this weekend’s Monaco Grand Prix, Honda chief engineer Shintaro Orihara spoke candidly about the main factors behind Aston Martin’s power unit struggles in the current campaign.
He began by highlighting how the same team that worked with Red Bull during their highly successful period with Max Verstappen is no longer the same crop of engineers who work with Aston Martin, attributing a rocky ‘handover’ to their difficult start to development.
Can Aston Martin’s relationship with Honda survive long-term?
“It’s not the case that all the engineers who developed the engine for the previous model were involved in the development of the new model,” he began.
“Even so, had the handover from the previous development team gone smoothly, and had the engine been an extension of the same technology, I believe it would have delivered performance similar to what we’ve seen before.
“However, when you decide to build it using completely different technology, that’s when the trial and error begins, and you end up starting from scratch.
“If we had been able to devote a massive amount of man-hours to development at the restart, I believe the new Power Unit would have delivered good performance right from its debut.
“However, the fact remains that we started development of this year’s PU, which is fitted to the Aston Martin, rather late. The reality is that compared to when we won the championship with Red Bull, we were unable to secure sufficient resources for development.
“In conclusion, the two main reasons we couldn’t get off to a strong start were a late start to development and insufficient resources.”
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