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Aston Martin Racing's new Honda powertrains are underwhelming to say the least. Not only are the engines allegedly down some 80 horsepower to the rest of the cars on track, but the powertrains kept failing in pre-season testing. So many failures occurred, in fact, that Aston Martin says it doesn't have enough spare components on hand to even compete at this weekend's Australian Grand Prix. According toMotorsport Italy, the team was considering its options to just sit out the race weekend altogether and regroup ahead of round two in China next week.
Because this would be a breach of the Concorde Agreement, and would come with a huge fine, Aston will be showing up to Melbourne prepared to run the minimum required laps. Honda has discovered that the vibrations of its turbocharged V6 engine are causing the hybrid batteries to fail after a surprisingly short number of laps. Motorsport Italy reports that Aston's solution to this issue is to bring both AMR26s to the race, "but the intention is to complete the minimum distance needed to line up for the race and stop after a few laps."
"We are aware that the test results indicate a very difficult and challenging situation," Ikuo Takeishi told Motorsport, head of HRC's four-wheel racing department. "Our engineers at Sakura and the track staff are working hard to make improvements."
Don't forget that Honda had abysmal reliability when it re-joined the roster of F1 engine suppliers with McLaren in 2015 as well. That abysmal season with McLaren was also driven by current Aston Martin racer Fernando Alonso, an unfortunate coincidence. He'll only need to turn about three laps this weekend in order to fulfill the letter of the team's necessary activities, but you can be sure those will be agonizing laps for the Spaniard.
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The troubles began in testing
Canadian fashion magnate Lawrence Stroll has spent untold billions of dollars in an effort to make his Aston Martin Racing outfit a top F1 contender. He's gone so far as to build a new facility for the team, hire the most successful chassis designer in F1 history, and partner with major automotive OEM Honda to build powertrains for the car in 2026. Stroll has hired multiple former F1 champs to partner with his son Lance in an effort to get his kid on the podium. None of it has worked, and it looks like the team will start 2026 in the worst way possible — missing an entire Grand Prix. Maybe they should drive the Costco gokarts.
There isn't much precedent here for Aston Martin, as there hasn't been a team missing the first round of the season since USF1 failed to arrive to the grid in 2010 as the team's funding collapsed at the last minute. The Manor/Marussia team arrived to the opening round in 2015 using their 2014-spec car as the new car wasn't ready yet, but the team did still manage to compete in the Grand Prix as normal. Neither of those teams failed because of a technical issue, but rather because of dry funding pools.
Aston Martin's stated goal for 2026 was to move up to fight among the Red Bulls and McLarens. With Fernando Alonso's impending retirement, the team hoped it could attract a top talent driver to pair with Failson Stroll to give the team a fighting chance at winning something. Now it's back to the drawing board and perhaps even an outright redesign of the AMR26 chassis. Maybe Honda should stop leaving F1, because every time it comes back that engine is a real stinker.
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