Will Buxton says Adrian Newey has already thrown Aston Martin’s Honda relationship ‘under the bus’

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Aston Martin might have already ‘completely ruined’ their relationship with Honda after just one Grand Prix weekend working together, according to Will Buxton.

Anyone who expected Aston Martin to perform any better than they did at the Australian Grand Prix must have managed to completely avoid any spoilers from pre-season testing.

Fernando Alonso nearly made it into Q2 in Melbourne, but needed three cars to fail to set a lap including Max Verstappen when he crashed and Lance Stroll due to mechanical issues.

How disappointed should Aston Martin be with their Australian Grand Prix performance?

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Stroll became the first driver since Jules Bianchi at the 2014 Australian Grand Prix to take the chequered flag but be considered ‘Not Classified’ because he was 15 laps behind race winner George Russell.

Adrian Newey sat down before the race weekend to discuss Aston Martin’s issues alongside Honda president Koji Watanabe, and it was clear that the problems both partners are facing are extensive.

Broadcaster Will Buxton was blown away by Aston Martin’s conduct and believes they’re now in a similar position to when McLaren dropped Honda as a power unit supplier in 2017.

READ MORE: All to know about Aston Martin F1 Team from team principal to lineage

Will Buxton criticises Aston Martin for ruining Honda relationship at the Australian Grand Prix

Buxton was speaking about Aston Martin’s poor performance at the Australian Grand Prix on the Up To Speed Podcast.

He said: “It was an absolute start-to-finish disaster for them.

“This was the year that they came to fight, and they’re not. There are two really big problems that Aston Martin have right now.

“One is an engine that’s shaking itself to pieces. And the other that I see right now is that they have started their relationship with Honda in completely the wrong way because they’ve thrown Honda under the bus.

“Rightly or wrongly, did they do their due diligence? Did they know that Honda was in the situation that it was in when they signed the contract to bring Honda back to F1 and have their engines?

Have Aston Martin already ‘completely ruined’ their relationship with Honda?

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“If they didn’t, they should have done because it wasn’t a shock to anybody that Honda got rid of most of their program or lost them to Red Bull Powertrains or wherever they went to, right?

“But if you’re going to pin all the blame on Honda, that’s exactly what McLaren did. And by the time Honda found their feet, which they will do, Honda had had enough of McLaren, had gone to Red Bull, and Red Bull reaped the rewards of all the work that Honda put in over that time.

“When you start off your first weekend throwing Honda under the bus, and in Japanese culture, pride and loyalty are so key. I just feel like they may have completely ruined that relationship before the first weekend was even over.

“And that more than anything is like it’s a disaster from every conceivable perspective.”

READ MORE: All you need to know about Aston Martin F1 team principal Adrian Newey

What went wrong during Adrian Newey and Honda’s Australian Grand Prix press conference

As soon as testing started in Bahrain, it was clear that Honda and Aston Martin were experiencing far bigger problems than anyone anticipated.

Neither driver could complete more than a handful of laps at a time, and both stopped on track at various points during the six days of running, although for Aston Martin, it was only five days, as Stroll wasn’t able to set a time on the final day after Honda ran out of batteries.

In a press conference held on media day in Melbourne, Newey and Watanabe faced up to the problems that Aston Martin are dealing with.

Despite suggesting Aston Martin have ‘maybe the fifth-best’ chassis on the grid, ‘certain conditions’ had to be applied to the power unit in Melbourne to avoid it shaking itself into oblivion.

It was clear that there had been a lack of communication between the two parties before the press conference, as the pair had no chance to ‘discuss properly prior to this meeting’ what was expected in Australia.

Alonso and Stroll appear to have avoided the nerve damage that Newey warned them about if they drove the car for more than 25 laps, but one of F1’s most exciting projects in recent memory is quickly turning into one of its biggest disasters.