A Honda engineer took the wheel to address an issue with Aston.
"The most significant accomplishment of the last two months"
Honda has disclosed that Aston Martin provided a full Formula 1 car and permitted one of its senior engineers to drive it in an effort to address a major issue encountered during the initial phase of the 2026 season. The new partnership between Aston Martin and Honda has had a challenging start this year, with one of the most urgent problems being the intense vibrations produced by the car and power unit. However, Honda Racing Corporation president Koji Watanabe claims this issue is now largely resolved.
"Following Suzuka, we took the Aston Martin car to HRC Sakura, where we collaboratively analyzed the vibrations and developed countermeasures," he told as-web.jp. "These solutions involved hardware modifications and software enhancements. As a result, the vibrations have been essentially resolved, and there were no issues during the driver evaluations from the Miami GP to the Monaco GP, so it has mostly been resolved. This has been the biggest achievement of these past two months."
A crucial aspect of the resolution involved Honda’s trackside manager and chief engineer, Shintaro Orihara, actually driving the Aston Martin at Honda’s Sakura facility in Japan. "I also went to see what they were doing," Watanabe revealed. "Aston Martin engineers were present and observed Orihara and others as they drove the car. At Honda, the ‘Three Realities Principle’ that Soichiro Honda advocated from the company's inception is still very much in practice. Unless we can experience the vibrations that drivers are reporting by actually driving the car, rather than just analyzing data, and confront the reality ourselves, the issue will not be resolved. I would like to express my gratitude to Aston Martin for their understanding and cooperation."
Watanabe acknowledged that it is quite uncommon for engineers to have the chance to drive racing vehicles, especially in Formula 1. "Typically, opportunities to drive a racing car are not readily available," he said. "It’s rare even in Super Formula, and even rarer in Formula 1. Even when testing production cars, it's mainly test drivers who get the opportunity to drive them. It is exceedingly uncommon for engineers to experience this firsthand."
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