Honda has brought further countermeasures to improve reliability for this weekend’s Japanese Grand Prix – its home Formula 1 race.
Aston Martin has had a nightmare start to the 2026 F1 season, with neither of its Honda-powered cars able to complete a full grand prix distance in either Australia or China.
Honda’s new power unit is plagued by major reliability and performance issues, including severe vibrations from the engine that has led to failures in the battery and fears drivers Fernando Alonso and Lance Stroll could suffer permanent nerve damage.
For its home race at Suzuka, Honda has introduced more countermeasures in a bid to improve the situation and is now confident it can finish a race for the first time this year.
“From a battery reliability viewpoint, we have made good progress through round one and round two,” Honda trackside leader Shintaro Orihara said.
“So we are confident to finish the race.”
Orihara was tight-lipped when asked specifically about the battery situation Honda is facing in Japan, something the manufacturer has not been keen to openly talk about at previous rounds.
“I won’t say any specific number but we are confident,” was all Orihara offered.
Aston Martin chief trackside officer Mike Krack stated that the objective for the Japanese Grand Prix “has to be to finish with both cars”
Expanding on the extreme vibration countermeasures that have been introduced, Krack said: “We have worked together on different measures for mitigating both the hardware and also the drivers’ side.
“So there are steps in place that we obviously need to test here and then see how we continue.”
Alonso retired from the Chinese Grand Prix because holding the steering wheel was proving too painful due to the severity of the vibrations.
Alarming footage from on-board Alonso’s AMR26 showed the two-time world champion taking both his hands off the steering wheel on the straights.
“If your driver says, ‘I cannot continue’, you have to act accordingly. And we had this situation where he was in a situation of discomfort,” Krack explained.
“We want to fix these issues in the first place; we don’t have to have anyone asking us to do it.
“After China there was a review, but not only for that – we had the incident where Lance stopped, so you have to review that, you review it from a technical point of view, but also operationally: how did we handle this situation?
“And I think this is good governance in each team, that you have to really do your housekeeping work. We did that, that is why we come up with some countermeasures here and I really hope that they are working.”
A more permanent fix for Honda’s reliability woes could come as soon as the next F1 race in Miami in early May.
“Difficult to say at this moment, we will see in Miami,” Orihara responded when asked about the possibility of hardware changes to improve reliability.
