Honda Admits Aston Martin Playing Catch-Up in F1 2026 Testing

Formula 1, Sportrik Media - Shintaro Orihara, Honda’s trackside general manager and chief engineer, has acknowledged that Aston Martin is “playing catch-up” in its overall testing programme under Formula 1’s new 2026 power unit regulations.

The 2026 season marks a significant transition for Aston Martin as it becomes a full works team through its new technical partnership with Honda. However, the initial phase of track running has proven challenging. The Silverstone-based squad missed the majority of the five-day shakedown test in Barcelona, only taking to the circuit towards the end of the penultimate day.

Pre-season form did not show a marked improvement in Bahrain. Both Fernando Alonso and Lance Stroll publicly questioned the team’s current competitive position. Stroll suggested the car was “four seconds” off the leading pace, while Alonso highlighted the demanding characteristics of the new-generation machinery.

Across the three-day test at the Bahrain International Circuit, Aston Martin completed just 203 laps — the lowest total of any team by a significant margin. Orihara admitted the mileage was below expectations but stressed that the data gathered remains valuable for long-term development.

“Testing in Bahrain over the last three days was really beneficial for us and for our partnership with Aston Martin as we ran over 200 laps overall,” Orihara said. “It was a good opportunity to learn a lot from the power unit package itself and its integration in the chassis.”

He emphasized that the new regulations fundamentally alter not only driving characteristics but also the approach to charging and deploying electrical energy over a lap.

“New regulations are a big change, not only in the way you drive the car, but also in how you charge and deploy your energy over one lap. We worked on new ways to deal with energy management together with the team and drivers.”

While acknowledging the desire for greater mileage, Orihara pointed out that this represents the first official on-track collaboration between Honda and Aston Martin under the new framework.

“Of course, we would have wanted to run more laps, but we have to remember this is our first official test together with the team, so we all had a lot to learn from our new on-track collaboration.”

He added that development efforts will continue both at Honda Racing Corporation’s R&D centre in Sakura and trackside.

“It is certain that we have more work to do back at our F1 R&D centre in HRC Sakura and here at the track. We know where to improve together with the team, and we are pushing hard.”

Orihara conceded that Aston Martin is currently behind in terms of total testing mileage but remains confident that the data collected provides a solid analytical foundation ahead of the remaining pre-season running.

“For sure, we are playing catch-up on the overall test programme, but we have acquired a significant amount of data and key learnings from the last week. We have three more days of testing next week and will be prepared to make the most of it.”

With additional testing days scheduled, Aston Martin and Honda face a compressed window to close the performance gap before the 2026 Formula 1 season officially begins.