Honda Racing Corporation president Koji Watanabe described concerns over the company's Formula 1 power unit project with Aston Martin as a misunderstanding stemming from staff rotations and a delayed rebuild. Adrian Newey revealed that Aston Martin only learned in November 2025 about significant changes in Honda's team since its Red Bull success. Watanabe emphasized that the partnership is now strong despite challenges like vibration issues.
Adrian Newey, Aston Martin's chief technical officer, disclosed during the 2026 Formula 1 season-opening weekend in Melbourne that the team was unaware until November 2025 of Honda's altered F1 project status compared to its dominant years with Red Bull. 'We only really became aware of it in November of last year when Lawrence, Andy Cowell and myself went to Tokyo to discuss rumours starting to suggest that their original target power they wouldn’t achieve for race one,' Newey said. 'And out of that came the fact that many of the original workforce had not returned when they restarted.' The partnership was announced in May 2023, but Honda had halted F1 activities at the end of 2021 before planning a return in 2023, leading to a period of limited development. Many engineers were rotated to other Honda divisions, including road car production, motorbikes, reusable rockets and solar panels. Watanabe, speaking in Suzuka, attributed external surprise to this policy and rebuild delays. 'Yes, basically I think that it’s a misunderstanding,' he said. 'Our policy is to rotate the engineers of the motorsport [projects] regularly to mass production or more advanced technologies like jet, eVTOL, hydrology or something like that.' He added that the organization now has sufficient talent and that relationships with Aston Martin leaders, including Lawrence Stroll, Tetsushi Kakuda and Enrico Cardile, are solid. Technical hurdles persist, including vibrations that appear worse in the chassis than on the dyno, and a later development start. 'We are working really closely together with Aston Martin Aramco to solve the problem, not only on the power unit but also together with the chassis,' Watanabe noted.
