Aston Martin has opened talks with Mercedes and Red Bull about a possible power unit supplier change in Formula 1 from 2028. According to the Italian site AutoRacer, the team is dissatisfied with Honda’s performance but still intends to give the Japanese manufacturer the opportunity to respond in 2027.
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Fernando Alonso and Lance Stroll noticed some improvement with the new version used at the Dutch GP, especially in power delivery. Even so, other problems continued to worry the team. Alonso even stated that Aston Martin “went back to square one,” citing drivability difficulties and also in gear changes.
Honda had already ruled out the possibility of an immediate major transformation and indicated that the latest update would be the last major one in 2026. Under the ADUO system, the manufacturer still has the right to two updates this year and another two in 2027. Mercedes and Red Bull appear in different situations in this mechanism, with the Red Bull-Ford engine pointed out as a reference and Mercedes 2% behind in this evaluation.
Lawrence Stroll invested about £200 million in the Aston Martin Racing Technical Campus, bringing together factory, wind tunnel, and simulator in the same structure. The chassis project faced delays and problems, but the updates developed by Adrian Newey and his team reduced some of these difficulties from the Hungarian GP onwards.
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As a result, the power unit has come to be seen as the next critical point of the project. If Honda does not deliver a more significant advance in 2027, Aston Martin already keeps Mercedes and Red Bull as possible alternatives for 2028.
A possible change, however, would require deep changes to the car, since the project would need to be adapted to receive another power unit. For now, Stroll’s intention is to wait for Honda’s response before making a definitive decision.
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