Despite a nightmarish first half of its comeback season in Formula 1, Honda has been beavering away in the background to improve, and the next big step is almost here.
Honda’s F1 trackside chief, Shintaro Orihara, has not had the most enviable of tasks when it comes to facing media scrutiny over the Japanese marque‘s power unit.
With a notable power deficit to that of its rivals, Honda and Aston Martin have suffered across the opening half of the 2026 season, with just one point to show for their efforts.
The car side of the operation saw Aston go into the summer shutdown with some positivity, as its 16-piece upgrades suite introduced at Hungary helped Fernando Alonso put one of the Silverstone-based squad’s cars into Q2 for the first time, and finished 15th, with teammate Lance Stroll 14th.
Now all eyes are on Honda’s side of the bargain, as a hotly-anticipated B-spec version of its power unit – tested in Hungary – will make its first appearance in Zandvoort next weekend.
For Orihara, there will surely be a newfound sense of excitement in talking about a Honda PU, and ahead of its debut, he revealed some key information about some of the changes made.
“We focused to improve engine performance, to make combustion faster,” he said.
“So it’s kind of a secret, but I can disclose a little bit. We changed the pre-chamber to make combustion faster, and we also changed the piston shape to get good combustion.
“We modified some lubrication system to reduce friction. We had quite a big list to improve engine performance.”
Honda ‘excited’ to show F1 its new grade PU
Honda has had a constant track record of remedying anomalies in its work previously, and already this year, it has been able to eradicate one of the focal points of its troubles.
The overwhelming vibrations permeating through the battery to the car was, as Team Principal Adrian Newey infamously revealed in Australia, putting Alonso and Stroll at risk of “permanent nerve damage”.
Orihara explained the process of eliminating the problem in an exclusive interview with Motorsport Week in Monaco, and now the focus is on extracting more horsepower.
“I can’t disclose the detailed number, but we have achieved our internal target,” Orihara said. “I’m confident in what the HRC Sakura factory guys achieved for the spec two engine.
“We are excited to bring a new spec engine to the Netherlands, and we will see where we are.”
There’s no doubt that the Aston-Honda combination will be the centre of attention when the AMR26 rolls out of the garages in Holland.
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