Aston Martin boss Adrian Newey lays bare Honda F1 inexperience and admits team racing in Australian GP not certain
Adrian Newey provides further revelations about Honda's engines struggles, Team already at limit on available batteries in Melbourne after tough first day; watch Australian GP qualifying at 5am on Saturday and the first race of the season at 4am on Sunday on Sky Sports F1
Friday 6 March 2026 07:33, UK
Aston Martin chief Adrian Newey has admitted the team were unaware until late on of the level of inexperience within Honda's current engine operation for their full return to F1 this year.
Honda have made a full-time comeback to F1 this year having ended its previous works partnership with Red Bull at the end of 2021, although the Japanese manufacturer continued to provide technical support for a power unit that claimed further world titles and race victories with the Milton Keynes-based team until the end of last year.
But Honda's latest engine design for the start of F1's new era of regulations - which prescribe a 50-50 split between internal combustion and electrical power - has hitherto floundered, with Aston Martin badly struggling for performance and reliability with their AMR26 car on track so far.
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On the first day of the new season in Melbourne on Friday, the team completed only three laps in opening practice on Friday due to Honda power unit problems. That tally improved to 31 laps in the second session, but they were still the slowest team with a fastest time which was 4.9 seconds off the pace.
On the timeline of Honda's stop-start F1 involvement over the past five years, team principal Newey said: "Honda pulled out at the end of 2021. They then re-entered the sport kind of at the end of 2022, so roughly a year and a bit out of the competition.
"When they reformed a lot of the original group had, it now transpires, disbanded, gone to work on solar panels or whatever. So a lot of the group that reformed are actually fresh to Formula 1, they didn't bring the experience that they had had previously
"Plus, when they came back in 2023 that was the first year of the budget cap introduction for engines so all their rivals had been developing away through '21 and '22 with continuity the existing team and free of budget cap.
"They re-entered with let's say only, I'm guessing, 30 per cent of their original team and now in a budget cap era. So they started very much on the back foot and unfortunately they've struggled to to catch back up."
But asked if Aston Martin had been aware of the level of the inexperience shortfall when they signed their Honda deal in May 2023, Newey, who joined Aston Martin from Red Bull last spring, said: "No, we weren't
"We only really became aware of it kind of November of last year when we - Lawrence [Stroll], Andy Cowell and myself - went to Tokyo to discuss as rumours starting to suggest that their original target power they wouldn't achieve for race one.
"Out of that came the fact that many of the original workforce had not returned when they restarted."
'Quite a scary place to be in' - Battery shortage already leaves Aston on race-one brink
A day after laying bare the shocking extent of the team's issues with Honda's power unit in a press conference in Melbourne, Aston Martin's struggles from Bahrain testing appeared to continue on day one at Albert Park.
Power unit issues saw Fernando Alonso fail to appear in the opening practice session entirely and Lance Stroll complete only three laps. Alonso returned for 18 laps in the afternoon, with Stroll adding 13 to his tally, but only Cadillac's Sergio Perez, who failed to set a time amid technical problems, finished below the Aston Martin pair on the timesheet.
Alonso admitted the car "didn't feel much different than in Bahrain".
Severe vibrations from the power unit have caused problems for the battery in the hybrid system and, speaking in the team principals' press conference between Friday's sessions, Newey revealed they were already down to one each for each car this weekend.
"We came here with four batteries," he said.
"We've had conditioning problems or communication problems with two of those batteries which means we've as we sit here today only got two operational batteries.
"That given our kind of rate of battery damage is quite a scary place to be in.
"Obviously, we're hopeful that we can get through the weekend and start two cars and so on and so forth, but it's very difficult to be concrete at the moment about that."
And asked if there was any possibility of flying any more batteries in to Melbourne, Newey conceded: "Unfortunately not. There aren't any."
Alonso, meanwhile, replied when asked after practice if they would make Sunday's grid: "We are OK to do it. It's more a question for Honda, if they have a stock."
The Spaniard, however, said the team were working hard to turn the situation around as soon as possible.
"We are much less negative than the media and people around," he said. "It's nice to tell the story when someone is doing great and when sometimes someone is doing wrong or things are not going well, you try to exaggerate both ends.
"We know where we are.
"We have a big challenge in front of us, but everyone in the team is embracing the challenge in a way, and I'm trying, everything we can to go out of the situation. So this is F1. Unfortunately, technology is very complex, and things require a little bit of time, and we are running every day on free practices and every week, Grand Prix to Grand Prix.
"Maybe we don't see the progress that we all want to see, but there are things happening, smaller or bigger, but there is always progress in teams, so let's hope that it's visible in lap time as soon as possible."
Sky Sports F1's Australian GP schedule
Saturday March 7
0.10am: F3 Sprint*
1.10am: Australian GP Practice Three (session starts at 1.30am)*
3.05am: F2 Sprint*
4.10am: Australian GP Qualifying build-up*
5am: AUSTRALIAN GRAND PRIX QUALIFYING*
7am: Ted's Qualifying Notebook*
9.45pm: F3 Feature Race*
Sunday March 8
12.20am: F2 Feature Race*
2.30am: Australian GP build-up: Grand Prix Sunday*
4am: THE AUSTRALIAN GRAND PRIX*
6am: Australian GP reaction: Chequered Flag*
7am: Ted's Notebook*
7.55am: Australian GP race replay*
10am: Australian GP highlights (also on Sky One)*
*Also on Sky Sports Main Event
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