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Adrian Newey has shown in the past that struggles with an engine partner can cause him to lose his focus in Formula 1.
Newey has made his frustration with Honda no secret, consistently criticising them for their disappointing work on the power unit that has seemingly held Aston Martin back this season.
Understandably, there were many who felt that Adrian Newey had upset people at Honda with his comments. And while Honda denied tensions with Aston Martin over Newey’s comments, his words will not have gone down well with the workers at Sakura.
Can Aston Martin’s relationship with Honda survive long-term?
And while the recent conversation has focused on Newey’s work on the chassis not being great, there is still some concern about his motivation to make things better.
Newey himself has recognised the AMR26’s flaws from a chassis standpoint. But the issues with Honda, no matter how exaggerated, could still have a detrimental impact on him.
READ MORE: Ralf Schumacher claims Adrian Newey has no excuse for Aston Martin’s car being overweight
Adrian Newey’s issues with Renault during Red Bull partnership should concern Honda and Aston Martin
Back in an interview with The Race in 2022, Adrian Newey, then with Red Bull, spoke about the disappointing final years of their partnership with Renault as engine suppliers.
Newey admitted that the engine issues and Renault’s lack of willingness to fix the issues quickly left him demotivated with Formula 1, and even had him considering a jump to Ferrari.
“Back then I was pretty disillusioned with the whole thing to be honest in as much as… obviously I nearly joined Ferrari but didn’t, which was kind of [part of it]…
“But more than anything, although I felt happy at Red Bull and didn’t really want to move teams, the only thing that had pushed me towards even thinking about moving teams was that we were stuck with an uncompetitive engine.
“We had a supplier that seemed more interested in the marketing angle that came from being in F1 than actually being competitive.
“If you have an engine partner who comes up with a power unit that’s below the competitors but shows a real desire and a will to fix it and go forward, then you accept it.
“But one that won’t recognise it’s behind and doesn’t seem to be interested in doing anything about it is altogether more difficult. So it caused me to lose motivation. I still enjoyed F1, but not like that.”
READ MORE: Adrian Newey and Honda disagree with Lawrence Stroll about Aston Martin writing off 2026 F1 season
Did Aston Martin make a mistake dropping Mercedes as engine partners for Honda?
Helmut Marko’s recent comments on Adrian Newey show history could be repeating itself
Last month, Helmut Marko revealed Newey was struggling at Aston Martin, as the team principal didn’t know how to turn their dire situation around.
“I’ve been in contact with him. He’s not doing well. There are problems with this project that won’t be solved quickly.”
Compare Aston Martin’s current situation to that of Red Bull during the final years of their partnership with Renault, it becomes clear that Newey finds himself living through the same nightmare again.
The only difference this time around is that Honda have been far more concerned with fixing the power unit issues than Renault seemingly were at the time.
But the willingness to improve is one thing. Newey admitted that seeing Red Bull’s performance level bottom out due to a faulty power unit led to him losing motivation.
If both Honda and Aston Martin can’t turn things around soon enough, they could risk losing Newey to another team, just like Red Bull did years ago.
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