Honda says strained Aston relationship ’better and better’

Honda says its relationship with Aston Martin, perceived early in 2026 as strained, has improved sharply as both sides prepare to combine the team’s new chassis with an upgraded power unit at Zandvoort.

The partnership endured a disastrous start to 2026, including severe engine vibrations, reliability failures and reported tension over how the Adrian Newey-led team and Honda should address the car’s weaknesses.

However, Aston Martin gained more than a second per lap with its heavily revised ’B’ specification in Hungary, where Fernando Alonso reached Q2 for the first time this season and both cars recovered positions in the race.

"Our partnership with Aston Martin is getting better and better," Honda Racing Corporation president Koji Watanabe said while attending the Super GT round at Fuji.

"I think we’re now in complete agreement on how to improve the overall performance of each car, what goals we should set, and what kinds of tests we should try to achieve that," he told as-web.jp.

Honda’s new specification engine completed its first track running during Aston Martin’s filming day at the Hungaroring last week and will make its race debut after the summer break.

"For the next race in Zandvoort, the updates will be mainly focused on the power unit, but when we change something, we never develop only one side," said Watanabe.

"They always go together. In that sense, we want to make sure we get a good result for our next race in Zandvoort."

Aston Martin ambassador Pedro de la Rosa agrees that the technical progress has been matched by a much healthier working relationship.

"Our communication has improved a lot," he told Automoto.it.

"The relationship with Honda has incredibly improved at all levels. We started without really knowing the people or the way they worked, with a new technical regulation that represented an additional challenge."

"Not having customer teams didn’t help in this context. You have to know each other to work well."

De la Rosa said the early reliability crisis ultimately forced both organisations to cooperate more effectively.

"We are very happy with how we managed very complex situations together, such as the one related to reliability."

"The difficulties in Bahrain, the first races we couldn’t finish. But we remained united to find a solution."

He said Hungary’s successful chassis debut also confirmed that Aston Martin’s simulation and correlation problems are being resolved.

"It shows that the simulation tools work and that the correlation with the wind tunnel and CFD is high."

"This wasn’t the case in the past. It gives us confidence in our tools for future developments."

However, De la Rosa would not predict how much the Honda upgrade will deliver, amid reported expectations ranging from a significant 30-50 horsepower.

"We have our expectations, but we haven’t tried it in the simulator yet," he said. "It’s best to be cautious before making any predictions."