The date matters more than the diagnosis. Honda had a rough idea at the end of 2025 that its Formula 1 return would be hard. By January, according to the man running the programme at the track, it knew the project was in genuine trouble.
Shintaro Orihara, Honda's trackside general manager and chief engineer, laid out the sequence to Motorsport.com.
"So, probably at the end of last year, our position was not so bad," he said. "Still, performance and drivability were in the development stage, but it looked okay. But in January, we realised that in some of the areas we found some, not issues, but we realised that performance was always up, down, up, down. So we found some performance, but then we also found some reliability issues."
Faced with a power unit that was inconsistent and fragile, Honda protected the engine and surrendered the lap time — unwinding performance gains to reach a reliability level it could race. Development slowed as a result.
"In January, we realised that our performance and reliability would not be competitive," Orihara said. "When we started running in Barcelona, we realised that our performance was definitely poor compared to the other manufacturers. And also, we found some issues on the battery side."
The battery trouble hurt twice, because it ate winter testing mileage that a team already behind could least afford to lose.
"So we realised that we were not in good position, maybe at beginning of this year," Orihara added. "Last year, at end of last year, we already saw that we were not competitive, but we didn't expect it so bad."
Pressed on which element of the new formula had caused the most grief, he declined to isolate one.
"It's difficult to say which component of the power unit is most challenging because in this regulation, everything has changed a lot. For example, MGU-K power changed from, let's say, [120] to 350 kilowatts. That is a significant change. But also on the internal combustion engine side, we have changed the fuel flow rate."
On the drivability complaints that shadowed Aston Martin's drivers through the opening rounds, alongside a vibration problem serious enough to raise nerve-damage concerns, he was more direct.
"Removing the MGU-H has also been quite challenging on the power unit side," Orihara said. "I have always been mentioning drivability. That is, maybe not mainly, but the majority of that is coming from removing the MGU-H."
Aston Martin's assessment is more forgiving. Adrian Newey, talking to media in Hungary after a 16-part upgrade package carried Fernando Alonso into Q2 for the first time in 2026, argued the crisis had produced something useful.
"Out of what can only be called a disastrous start, the positive of that, because you're always looking for positives, is that it's brought Honda and ourselves, AMR, into a very close working relationship," Newey said. "Normally, if relationships improve, then performance also improves."
He declined to inflate expectations for Zandvoort, where the revised Honda engine — reportedly worth around 30 horsepower — races for the first time alongside more chassis work.
"We're clearly playing a big catch-up game. Is it going to make us the quickest car? Unfortunately, not. But does it represent a good step forward from where we were? Yes, I believe it does."
Honda Racing Corporation president Koji Watanabe was cooler still about the Hungarian result, telling as-web.jp it owed something to "the characteristics" of a circuit that rewards the chassis — a welcome change after Silverstone and Spa, where Honda's power shortfall had nowhere to hide.
Watanabe did describe the partnership as "steadily improving", built on "a clear shared understanding of how to improve overall performance", and rejected the framing of Zandvoort as an engine-only update.
"When making changes, we never develop just one aspect in isolation — the two are always developed in tandem," he said. "In that sense, we are determined to deliver solid results ahead of the upcoming race at Zandvoort."
Orihara has told PlanetF1.com and other outlets Honda is aiming for a "reasonably big step". The unit has already turned laps on a Hungaroring filming day. The Dutch Grand Prix on 23 August is where January's verdict gets tested in public.
