Honda Postpones Big Upgrades to 2027

The Italian Grand Prix was a harsh reminder of Aston Martin's limitations. The Monza circuit, with its long straights and top speed demands, mercilessly exposed the AMR26's greatest weakness, its Honda power unit. The Japanese manufacturer has acknowledged that there will be no major engine advances for the rest of the 2026 season and has placed its hopes on 2027 to make a qualitative leap.

Shintaro Orihara, Honda's trackside boss, was clear in diagnosing the situation: "We have a roadmap to develop the engine and we know where we are now, looking at where we are on our roadmap we will bring another big step for the first race (of 2027). It's hard to say that we will catch up to the rivals for that first race but we keep pushing to close the gap, this year there will not be a big evolution" declared the Japanese engineer.

Orihara's words confirm what was already intuited in the Monza paddock, although Honda introduced an evolution in Zandvoort, the performance gain has been imperceptible. In Italy, with so many consecutive straights and limited recharging capacity to contain superclipping, the combustion engine had to do almost all the work and that is where the AMR26 shows its seams. The data is forceful, Fernando Alonso recorded a top speed of 314.7 km/h and Lance Stroll 310.7 km/h, the worst of the weekend, at the other extreme Lando Norris with the Mercedes engine reached 343.9 km/h.

The on track difficulties were aggravated by mechanical problems. Alonso retired with floor damage after a track exit at the Lesmo 2 corner, while Stroll suffered a hydraulic failure that forced him to stop his car. The Italian weekend was in short a perfect storm for the Silverstone team.

Despite the bleak outlook, Honda found a ray of hope in the engine's drivability. Orihara highlighted the advances in this aspect after the problems resurfaced when introducing the power unit in the Netherlands: "The main objective was to confirm if the measures worked on track, we saw positive behavior on the power bench and the drivers' feedback is good, it's an important step before going to Madrid where drivability will be quite important, we are going in the right direction" he stated.

However, drivability is a matter of hundredths because an unpredictable engine takes away confidence from the drivers, the lack of power is instead a problem of several tenths compared to direct rivals. Aston Martin trusts that the aerodynamic improvements introduced by Adrian Newey can partially compensate for this deficit, but the engine problem is a burden that the team will carry for the rest of the season.

The 2027 horizon appears as the great hope for Honda, the Japanese brand promises a "big step" for the first race of next year, until then Aston Martin will have to settle for fighting on high downforce circuits where top speed is not so decisive.

Monza was a painful reminder of reality, but the team trusts that the joint work with Honda and Newey's genius will allow them to close the gap in the future.