No Quick Fix for Aston Martin’s F1 Struggles

No Quick Fix for Aston Martin’s F1 StrugglesMark Thompson - Getty Images

Honda says it is expecting to introduce further countermeasures to its vibration issues in Miami this weekend, but has downplayed any notion of a stride in performance.

Honda linked up with Aston Martin under new regulations this year, but the partnership has so far proved a disaster amid a lack of performance and reliability.

While Aston Martin’s delayed AMR26 clearly has aerodynamic deficiencies, much of the focus has been placed on Honda’s power unit, which is the weakest in the field.

A lack of performance and reliability has been accentuated by vibrations that have led to Fernando Alonso and Lance Stroll being unable to complete long distances in the AMR26.

Alonso did manage to finish the most recent grand prix in Japan, the partnership’s first classified result of 2026, but he was mired at the back of the field, slower even than the Cadillacs.

“It has been a long but intense period between the races with lots of work happening in collaboration with the Aston both in Japan and in the UK,” said Honda’s Chief Engineer Shintaro Orihara.

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“The Japanese Grand Prix showed that the work is going in the right direction and helped us to find the motivation to keep pushing forward.

“After that race, we took the opportunity to keep one of the AMR26 cars on site for further static testing in Sakura for the first time, focusing our efforts on reducing the vibrations and thus increasing reliability.

“We have made some progress, allowing us to implement further countermeasures in Miami and later in the season.

“Realistically, this progress will not have a visible impact on the power unit performance on track, so we shouldn’t be expecting big jumps forward here.”