Honda faces driveability puzzle: Power step forward and the Zandvoort wake-up call

No one brings a blank piece of paper to a press conference to deflect questions if they actually have a handsome number to show off. At Zandvoort, Honda's F1 project leader Tetsushi Orihara did exactly that: held up a blank sheet in front of the cameras, implying that horsepower figures were an internal matter. But three weeks later at Monza, he was the one who voluntarily opened up about the 'step forward' that the first internal combustion engine upgrade of 2026 had delivered. The story is not about the horsepower number — it lies in what the dyno cannot perfectly simulate: driveability.

Context: The upgrade in the 'freeze' era

Since 2026, F1's technical regulations have frozen internal combustion engine development. Teams are only permitted to improve reliability and driveability. Against that backdrop, Honda's upgrade at Zandvoort was a significant signal: for the first time in the 2026 season, they touched the engine's core. But Orihara hid nothing: the ICE was all they changed. The ERS, MGU-H, MGU-K, battery — all remained untouched. That means any power gain, if it exists, would come from optimizing combustion characteristics, not from an architectural revolution.

Core insight: The dyno doesn't lie, but it doesn't tell the whole story

Orihara confirmed that what they saw on the dyno at HRC Sakura had been validated on track. That is an important technical signal: Honda's simulation tools are accurate at the absolute performance level. But immediately after, he admitted something every engine engineer understands: driveability had not yet satisfied the drivers.

Data only tells part of the story; the rest lies in knowing how to listen.

Driveability is not a single metric. It is the sum of four factors: gearshift quality, combustion stability during braking, engine braking force, and torque pickup smoothness. Each factor interacts with the chassis, the regenerative braking system, and — most critically — with each driver's style. Fernando Alonso, with his late-braking, sharp-cornering style, will feel combustion instability more acutely than Lance Stroll. That creates a development puzzle that is far from simple: whose feedback takes priority?

Within 10 days of Zandvoort, Honda's engineering team at Sakura had brought data and driver feedback back to the dyno, developed countermeasures, and tested them. This is an impressive response time — evidence of the agility of software-based calibration development, as opposed to hardware changes that require long manufacturing lead times.

Contrarian angle: When the chassis is part of the problem

Mike Krack, Aston Martin team principal, offered a subtle observation: driveability is 'also a chassis topic'. This statement could be misread as an attempt to spread responsibility, but in technical reality, it is entirely accurate.

Every collapse has its premises; few are willing to see them in advance.

Aston Martin had just gone through its first major upgrade package under Adrian Newey at Hungary. When the chassis changes — particularly aerodynamic characteristics and brake balance — it interacts directly with how the engine delivers torque and engine braking. If Newey has shifted the car's balance point, then the driveability issue may not lie entirely with Honda. It lies at the interface between two systems — and that is where coordination between two engineering teams becomes the decisive factor.

This also means that even if Honda perfectly resolves the engine-side issues, if the chassis and PU are not optimally integrated, the problem may persist. This is a risk that is often underestimated in PU upgrade narratives.

Lessons for Monza and beyond

Monza, with its high-speed, low-downforce characteristics, may not be the ideal circuit to thoroughly test driveability countermeasures. The slow-speed, heavy-braking corners — where the issue manifests most clearly — are not Monza's defining features. The real validation may have to wait for circuits with more diverse technical characteristics.

But one thing is certain: Honda is laying the foundation for something bigger. The driveability lessons from the 2026 season — particularly around combustion stability and control calibration — will be transferred directly into the 2026 PU development program. That is the real prize of the Honda-Aston Martin partnership.

A contract looks beautiful on paper only until someone tries to fit it into a running system.

The question is not whether Honda can solve the driveability issue — but how quickly they can do it, and whether Aston Martin can afford to wait while the midfield battle grows increasingly fierce. With every hundredth of a second, an advantage can vanish.