As the Formula 1 landscape braces for a significant regulatory overhaul in 2026, the impending partnership between Aston Martin and Honda Racing Corporation (HRC) is rapidly progressing, heralding a new era for both entities. This strategic alliance follows Honda’s highly successful but ultimately concluding tenure with Red Bull Racing, which formally wraps up at the close of the 2025 season.

Honda’s journey with Red Bull began in 2019, building on an initial collaboration with then-sister team Toro Rosso (now Visa Cash App RB) in 2018. Over seven seasons with the senior Red Bull outfit, and eight including its junior counterpart, the Japanese manufacturer powered Max Verstappen to three consecutive Drivers’ World Championships (2021-2023) and Red Bull Racing to two Constructors’ titles (2022-2023), with the 2024 season still underway. This period marked a remarkable resurgence for Honda in F1, overcoming earlier challenges faced during its return to the sport.

While the formal engine development partnership between Honda and Red Bull concluded at the end of 2021, an agreement was reached for Red Bull teams to continue utilising Honda power units until the end of 2025. This arrangement was facilitated by an engine development freeze introduced by the FIA, which provided stability. Initially, Red Bull had explored plans to bring Honda’s engine intellectual property in-house for its own Red Bull Powertrains (RBPT) project. However, Honda’s reluctance to transfer its proprietary technology, coupled with the extended supply deal, offered a less risky pathway for Red Bull, which is now fully committed to its Powertrains-Ford project for 2026.

With Red Bull charting its independent course, Honda is set to embark on a new chapter with Aston Martin. The Silverstone-based team, currently operating as a customer of Mercedes-AMG High Performance Powertrains, will transition to a full works team status in 2026. This fundamental shift carries profound implications, allowing for an unparalleled level of integration between chassis and power unit development that is unattainable in a customer relationship.

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Andy Cowell, the seasoned motorsport engineer who previously led Mercedes HPP to an era of dominance and now serves as Aston Martin Performance Technologies CEO and Team Principal, underscored the transformative nature of this collaboration. "It’s completely different from being a customer team where it’s a little bit of a black box, a black box that you can’t edit," Cowell explained, detailing the fundamental change in Aston Martin’s operational model.

Under a works partnership, the boundaries between the engine supplier and the chassis constructor dissolve, fostering a unified approach to performance maximisation. "As a works team, there’s a plethora of systems where you’re discussing openly with the Honda engineers to maximise performance," Cowell elaborated. "Our common currency is lap time, so everything – whether it’s mass, heat rejection, fuel consumption, centre of gravity, aero opportunity – you equate it all to lap time. Look at the results and go, right, if we do this and this, then that’s the overall carrot that we’ll see on page one of a race weekend. That’s what the engineers work on to create the concepts and deliver those without losing any lap time."

The ambition to translate theoretical concepts into tangible on-track gains presents a formidable engineering challenge. Cowell highlighted the complexity of this process: "That’s a tough journey. You have a concept but actually turning that into reality – into something that definitely works on the test bed – is an interesting process. The performance is there, the heat rejection is nice and low, the flow rates are low, the pump efficiency is low, crank power is good, round trip efficiency of the electrical systems is good, and it fits beautifully together in a compact environment. That’s the quest that we’re on."

The 2026 F1 regulations themselves introduce significant changes to the power unit formula, with a greater emphasis on electrical power (from 120kW to 350kW) and the use of 100% sustainable fuels. Crucially, the complex MGU-H component, which recovers energy from exhaust gases, will be removed. While this theoretically simplifies the engine architecture, the increased electrical component and fuel requirements introduce new areas of technical challenge and opportunity for development.

Cowell’s confidence in the Honda partnership stems from his direct observations and extensive experience. Having visited Honda’s facilities in Japan multiple times over the past year, he expressed profound admiration for their operational ethos. "I guess it was just before the Austin GP last year that I visited Honda. I was impressed with their facility, the hunger, the creativity, and the determination," he recalled. "And there hasn’t been a drop in that sort of approach over the last 12 months. They’re just pushing. It’s an engineering-led business with motorsport right at the beating heart of them. They also like working on the whole aspect of the race car, so they like contributing to lap time in multiple ways."

The fundamental difference between a customer and a works team, as Cowell articulated, is the ability to influence and co-develop. As a Mercedes customer, Aston Martin receives a power unit with fixed parameters, necessitating design concessions on the chassis side. With Honda, the dynamic is entirely collaborative. Joint discussions ensure the power unit is packaged in a manner that minimises aerodynamic compromises for the chassis. Furthermore, Aston Martin gains early and comprehensive insight into any necessary concessions, allowing for proactive design adjustments for the following year’s car.

"I think that’s liberating for the engineers," Cowell stated. "They’ve now got the opportunity to have that dialogue and share data on what’s the best way of packaging the back of the chassis, the front of the power unit, what’s the best way of coming up with cooling systems, et cetera. The Honda engineers are very creative and there’s some really good joint simulation work looking at what’s best. How do you optimise lap time across all of these systems? The same applies to the transmission and airflow underneath the bodywork, there’s a healthy relationship there."

This integrated approach extends to Aston Martin’s development of its own gearbox for 2026, a departure from its current reliance on Mercedes HPP. Cowell confirmed that prototype gearboxes are already undergoing testing at both Aston Martin’s Silverstone base and Honda’s Sakura facility. This joint development is facilitated by robust IT infrastructure, allowing engineers in Silverstone to monitor live data from dyno tests in Sakura, ensuring seamless collaboration across continents.

Honda’s recent F1 history presents a compelling dichotomy: a challenging initial period with McLaren (2015-2017) followed by remarkable success with Red Bull. Cowell’s conviction that Aston Martin will mirror the Red Bull trajectory rather than the McLaren one stems from a perceived cultural alignment. "I think our team is engineering-led, and Honda are engineering-led as well. So as soon as you get into the engineering things, we talk the same language. The culture is the same. It’s all about systems and what’s best for the stopwatch on Saturday in qualifying, and what’s the best way of covering 305 kilometres on Sunday. It’s a relationship that I’m really enjoying."

A significant advantage in solidifying this burgeoning relationship is the involvement of Adrian Newey, who recently joined Aston Martin as Managing Technical Partner. Newey’s deep understanding and respect for Honda, cultivated during his highly successful tenure at Red Bull, provides an invaluable bridge between the two organisations. "It’s a big benefit. Adrian knows, understands and respects them," Cowell added. "That’s the thing and that just helps all the conversations. The relationship is already there, so the conversations are into the engineering details swiftly."

The combination of Cowell’s extensive engine expertise and Newey’s legendary chassis design prowess forms a formidable foundation for the Honda-Aston Martin partnership. While the collaboration is progressing meticulously according to plan, Cowell acknowledges that the ultimate arbiter of success will be the on-track results in 2026, which remain inherently unpredictable at this stage.

"None of us can compare with our opponents yet," Cowell concluded, reflecting on the competitive landscape. "What I can see though is an engineering-led organisation that’s pushing hard on performance development, on efficiency improvements, mass savings and chasing a tough reliability target. And their methods, their hunger, their timing ambition is really impressive to see." This blend of technical prowess, shared ambition, and integrated development positions the Aston Martin-Honda alliance as a compelling force to watch in the evolving era of Formula 1.

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Jonas Leo

Jonas Leo is a passionate motorsport journalist and lifelong Formula 1 enthusiast. With a sharp eye for race strategy and driver performance, he brings readers closer to the world of Grand Prix racing through in-depth analysis, breaking news, and exclusive paddock insights. Jonas has covered everything from preseason testing to dramatic title deciders, capturing the emotion and precision that define modern F1. When he’s not tracking lap times or pit stop tactics, he enjoys exploring classic racing archives and writing about the evolution of F1 technology.

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