Honda is confident that the reliability issues that plagued its season start are in the past, and the focus has now switched to more performance-related matters.

Having struggled to make it to the chequered flag in the opening races, a programme to eradicate excessive shaking of the battery system on the Honda power unit has been successful.

Honda says Aston Martin battery reliability issues are now ‘gone’

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Aston Martin and Honda’s difficult start to the F1 2026 season has seen the Japanese manufacturer having to work hard to overcome serious battery shaking that compromised reliability significantly.

Having introduced mitigating dampening elements through the opening races, Aston Martin left an AMR26 chassis behind in Japan after the Suzuka race, allowing Honda to work on further optimisation using an actual chassis, having only encountered the vibration issues once the power unit was actually fitted into the chassis at the start of the pre-season.

In Miami, the measures taken bore immediate fruit as the two AMR26 chassis made it to the end of both the Sprint race and the Grand Prix, with Fernando Alonso also beating Cadillac’s Sergio Perez after a race-long fight.

With vibration issues clearly improving, Aston Martin now finally appears to be in a position to start focusing on performance and drivability, and Honda’s Shinato Orihara confirmed the reliability issues are no longer the main concern as the momentum of the season finally starts to pick up after a stop/start first few rounds.

“In Miami, we had a good step on reliability, and the battery issues are, let’s say, now gone,” he told the media in Montreal ahead of the Canadian Grand Prix weekend.

“Then we now focus on improving the energy management and also driveability; that is the main improvement point for lap time. So we have optimised our data settings for reliability.”

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With Alonso and Lance Stroll encountering axle locking that hampered drivability in Miami, the two-time F1 World Champion had pointed to the gearbox and gear shifting as being the next priority, and Orihara said there is a clear picture already formed on what is needed in this area.

“We have a good understanding of what the problem is or what is causing the drivability issue,” he said.

“The unique point is that this year, I would say regulation is changing.

“Engine brake phase operation, load is high, so quite a big difference in operation when comparing to last year, and then we see some unique behaviour in that phase.

“Then we are trying to improve our controllability in that phase.”

Aston Martin’s Mike Krack pointed to how the team is making its own gearbox for the first time, having previously used Mercedes-supplied components when a customer of Brixworth until this season.

“The whole subject of drivability, including the shifting up or down, is a step more complicated than it used to be, for various reasons,” he said.

“The regulations have changed quite a lot regarding the downshifting. We are recuperating much, much, much more.

“The load levels are lower, and we are new to that party as well; we must not forget.

“It is a complex topic that I think we get our head more and more around, also from the fact that we can now do more laps, we can do more running, a lot of issues that we had that prevented us from running are now solved.

“New topics pop up, so I think the whole gearbox topic is challenging and will remain challenging.

“We also see across the field, there are a lot of drivers complaining about shifting, and I think it is partly related to the situation, but also, I think we have some work to do.”

With Aston Martin likely to make strides forward on performance over the coming months, as routine small upgrades and tweaks are made to the AMR26, Krack declined to hazard a guess at just how much lap time might be unlocked through the drivability measures.

“Every engineer wants to put a number around drivability, around balance of the car, around shifting, and all that; I would love to give you the number, but I don’t have it myself, so it would just have to be guessing,” he said.

The key aspect to the improvements, Krack said, is that the sense of positivity within the organisation has remained intact despite the difficult start to the season.

“We had a meeting with the team this morning,” he said.

“The spirit is very good because we are honest about the situation, and we are aware, and we discuss it.

“So I can only confirm that the spirit with our partner, within the team, is very strong, but for the drivers, it’s very difficult, because they are the most exposed.”

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