Honda says Aston Martin’s chassis, not just its power unit, is a factor in vibration problems

Honda Racing Corporation President Koji Watanabe says the vibration issues being suffered by Aston Martin are not solely down to the power unit itself, but also its integration with the chassis.

Aston Martin has been severely limited in terms of its running during the opening races of the Formula 1 season due to severe vibrations causing reliability issues for the car, and also discomfort for the drivers. Honda has been working to reduce the impact on the battery, which has been the subject of a number of failures, but Watanabe said an overall solution requires focus on the Aston Martin chassis, too.

“The most difficult point is that we started the development a bit later compared to the others," said Watanabe in reference to Honda, which is making its return as a full factory program this year. "Also, in the test on the dyno the vibration is (at an) acceptable level, but once we integrate (it) into the actual chassis, that vibration is getting much more (strong) than the test on the dyno.

“Of course (focusing) only the power unit cannot solve the problem, so we are really (working) closely together with Aston Martin Aramco to solve the problem, not only the power unit but also together with the chassis.”

After such a successful partnership with Red Bull as a power unit supplier, Watanabe believes Honda’s current issues are partly due to a fallow spell when it wasn’t investing in its F1 program.

“I believe that there are several reasons," he said. "The first one is that, yes, of course, the new power regulation is quite challenging for us. The second one is that we stopped the Formula 1 activities at the end of 2021 and announced [the plan] to return to Formula 1 in 2023, so there is some period that during that period our Formula 1 activity was quite limited.

“It also took a bit of time for us to rebuild the organization to restart Formula 1 development. But now we are working closely with Aston Martin Aramco, not only in the technical area but also overall area, how we can build a strong partnership together with them.

“So, Aston Martin Aramco and Honda is not only just an F1 constructor and power manufacturer, but also, we are working closely as one team. Actually, in our facility in Japan, the engineers from Aston Martin Aramco are really working hard, closely with our engineers in Sakura, working together. So, I think (what's) most important is that we can keep moving forward step by step.”

Team principal Adrian Newey has stated that Aston Martin was caught out by how inexperienced and under-resourced the Honda program was late last year, but Watanebe denies that to be the case.

“I think that it’s a misunderstanding," he said. "Basically, our policy is to rotate the engineers of the motorsport (division) regularly to mass production, or more advanced technologies like jet or eVTOL or hydrology or something like that. We've continue to rotate from the beginning.

“Also, as I said, to rebuild the (F1) organization took a bit of time, so that was his worry, I think. But now we have sufficient organization and talent.”