Aston Martin and Honda are enduring a bruising start to the Formula 1 campaign, grappling with a machine built under the guidance of Adrian Newey, a brand-new factory, and an official Honda power unit. As Motorsport.com Italia reports from a visit to HRC Sakura, Honda Racing president Koji Watanabe has addressed the struggles head-on in a frank discussion about what is going wrong.
Watanabe, whose tenure as president concludes at the end of the year with current vice president Keiichi Yasuda stepping into the role from January 1, did not sugarcoat the results. Describing the season as difficult, he pointed to a fresh set of regulations, a new team, new fuel and oil, and new drivers as an immense mountain to climb. The ambition remains burning, but reality has bitten hard.
When asked directly if the Honda power unit is inferior, Watanabe looked straight at the FIA data used for Additional Development and Upgrade Opportunities. Based on those metrics, he admitted they are clearly behind rival manufacturers, conceding that power is simply lacking compared to the competition. While the specific 2 power unit hit its target figures for raw output, tweaks to the combustion process threw drivability backward toward the early days of specification 1. Hardware and control adjustments are ironing out those drivability quirks, but the deficit in sheer power remains the primary hurdle.
Tracing the root causes, Watanabe pointed to a delayed start in development. Even though basic F1 research never fully ceased after turning HRC into a racing development company, the formal return announced in 2023 took time to structure. Decisions were made to prioritize the battery and electric motor, areas where goals were successfully met, but this created a bottleneck for the internal combustion engine. Pushed up against the budget cap and strict working hour limits, the operation simply ran out of runway to close the gap.
Rebuilding the workforce also proved uniquely complicated. Many engineers from the fourth era had been reassigned to carbon neutrality and advanced technology departments by March 31, 2022. Because these personnel held senior roles as project leaders, moving them back required complex handovers and time, compounding the development lag. Rather than iterating on the 2025 design, Honda built a completely new engine from scratch to chase aggressive targets, adding further friction to the process.
Despite rumors of tension and outside contact from Aston Martin, Watanabe insists the partnership is only growing stronger under pressure. The teams are openly discussing flaws in both chassis and power unit, aiming to function as a unified racing entity rather than separate factions. Proof of this tighter integration came after the Japanese Grand Prix, when the Aston Martin chassis was brought directly to HRC Sakura for testing, with staff from the squad still stationed at the facility. Watanabe acknowledges that achieving total harmony will take time, but the immediate priority is ensuring they can race properly next year.
