Honda warns Aston Martin: The Japanese Grand Prix won’t be easy

Honda is sounding the alarm ahead of the Japanese Grand Prix, cautioning that Aston Martin is in for a challenging weekend. Even though the Sakura-based engineers used the break between Shanghai and Suzuka to keep refining the power unit’s reliability, the current state of the engine is far from ideal.

Beyond the vibration issues that limited preseason mileage and forced Fernando Alonso to retire in China, the internal combustion engine is struggling with energy recovery — a critical component of the new-generation cars.

Shintaro Orihara, Honda’s F1 project leader, didn’t sugarcoat the situation: “In China we made progress with battery reliability by reducing the vibrations affecting the systems, but we still need to find the root cause of the vibrations impacting the drivers. We also focused our efforts between China and Japan on improving reliability, but performance isn’t where we want it, especially in battery management.”

Suzuka Will push the power unit to its limits

“Suzuka is a tough circuit for energy recovery, so we’ve used what we learned in Australia and China to prepare better for the Japanese GP,” Orihara added. “We’re not at the level we’d like heading into the weekend, but we’ll keep working to maximize our package. We’re excited to see Honda fans at home and show them we’ve made progress since Bahrain.”

Still, the Japanese engineer admitted they’d prefer to “show better results on track.”

Aston Martin still searching for its first points of 2026

Aston Martin remains the only team — alongside Cadillac — that has yet to score a single point this season. The team barely managed to complete the Shanghai sprint, but at least they’re now logging laps with more consistency than in Bahrain or Australia. However, as long as reliability remains a moving target, finding raw performance will be difficult while the rest of the grid settles into a steady rhythm.

In Japan, Alonso will skip the first free practice session so reserve driver Jak Crawford can take the wheel, fulfilling one of the four rookie-mandatory FP1 outings required each season.

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