The Formula 1 winter test in Bahrain has been a real drama for one team. Aston Martin had extremely high expectations for the start of the new season and everyone understood why that was the case. There was a lot of enthusiasm, especially with Fernando Alonso, because it seemed as if he would finally be able to compete for a championship again.
In 2005 and 2006, Alonso became Formula 1 champion, after which he spent a large part of his career making the wrong choices and therefore driving uncompetitive cars. That seemed to change in 2026, as Aston Martin had brought in design guru Adrian Newey, who has won the most championships as a designer in F1 history.
In addition, Honda had also joined the team from Silverstone. The Japanese manufacturer has won four of the last five championships in the premier class of motorsport and therefore seemed to be the ideal partner for Aston Martin and also for Newey – who has already worked with the Japanese at Red Bull.
But in Bahrain it turned out that the team will reap little benefit from this. The Honda engine is not nearly powerful enough and also has reliability problems, which forced the British team to drive with a speed limit in Bahrain – otherwise the power source could blow up… And all this caused Lance Stroll to speak out very critically about the Honda engine.
“Time will tell how much performance we can get from the car; at the moment we have the problems we have. We’re trying to improve in every session, every day, and see how much we can get out of this car. It’s a combination of factors. Engine, balance, grip… it’s not just one thing. A lot of that, including the balance, is because of the engine,” said a critical teammate of Alonso.
And the message is now coming out from Spain that Red Bull Racing is ultimately the guilty party, when we talk about the problems at Aston Martin. Honda, the engine partner of Lawrence Stroll’s team, has lost a lot of staff in recent years to Red Bull Powertrains – Red Bull’s engine department. It would be about 40% [!] of the Honda F1 staff.
As a result, the Japanese manufacturer had to put together a completely new team and had the least time of all manufacturers to prepare for the new regulations. This makes the ‘real’ Honda engine the power source in Max Verstappen’s RB22…
date:2026-02-15 07:00:00