Honda will introduce a significant update to its power unit this weekend during the Formula 1 Dutch GP. The confirmation was made by Shintaro Orihara, track manager and chief engineer of the Japanese manufacturer, and represents another move in search of performance improvement for Aston Martin.
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Asked how much of Aston Martin’s disadvantage could be eliminated by the update, Orihara said: “That’s a good question, but I can’t explain how much of the difference we can reduce with this update. But, as I mentioned, in Formula 1, we need to be realistic, so we can’t bring a magic update, but we believe we have taken some good steps with this update. So, we still have a gap to the top teams, but, in Hungary, Aston Martin brought a big update…”
“Every 50 milliseconds or 100 milliseconds is very important to improve our position, and I believe our update can provide that kind of improvement in lap times,” he concluded.
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Honda also does not expect the new power unit to cause penalties for Aston Martin this weekend. On the other hand, Orihara confirmed that this will be the only major engine update in 2026. Small modifications may still be made if Honda finds solutions to improve performance, but a new major evolution is only planned for 2027.
“This is the only major update for this year. But if we find something, a good solution to improve our performance through a small modification, that could be on the table. But the [next] major update will be in 2027.”
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