Honda has started background development work to improve its underpowered Formula 1 engine while prioritising early reliability fixes, but bringing a meaningful performance upgrade is not a "short-term" job.
Aston Martin and Honda's works partnership has had a terrible start to 2026 with just one classified finish for one car across the opening three races and a humbling home grand prix for Honda in Japan where the team was the slowest of all in qualifying.
Honda's engine is underpowered and barely becoming reliable which, combined with Aston Martin's own struggles on the chassis side, has left the new collaboration falling well short of its lofty expectations and potential early on.
The exact Honda deficit is unknown as not only is Honda's internal combustion engine power output understood to be down, its inefficient battery usage limits how much it can deploy the MGU-K and recharge across a lap.
In qualifying at Suzuka, Aston Martin was 20-30km/h down on rivals on the longest straights in the first two-thirds of the lap, and the engine may have played a part in a very underwhelming sector one as the MGU-K was not being used from Turns 3 to 6.
Alonso has a worse average qualifying deficit, grid position and percentage of laps completed this year so far than across the first three races of 2015, 2016 and 2017.
With reliability being so poor - and that having a direct impact on the performance and development potential for both the chassis and engine - there has been no choice but to prioritise this glaring vulnerability.
This has also taken up time and money that could otherwise be spent on developing performance upgrades. So far, the countermeasures have been quick fixes, but the April-long gap without a race means there appears to be a real chance Honda will bring a first specification change for reliability for the next race in Miami at the start of May.
Performance upgrades are not permitted outside of the ADUO system but reliability changes can be made separately to that, with FIA permission.
It has not been possible to do that in the weeks since the Bahrain test as meaningful changes require a long lead time to validate for reliability purposes. Even Miami could be a stretch but it depends on the extent of the change and Honda has at least hinted this is the aim.
This might at least unlock a little more performance in turn, though, as Honda is clearly running in a more conservative state, around 1000rpm down.
"We still take a bit [of] margin to complete the running, but not so much," said Orihara.
"What we need to focus on is to improve our energy management.
"Our engine operation condition is close to the limit, so we can't take so much margin.
"We focus to improve our data settings, and also to improve the engine performance itself on the dyno.
"That is our main focus point."
Context:
Honda faces months-long timeline for meaningful F1 engine upgrades despite urgent reliability focus.
Context:
Poor engine performance combined with chassis issues threatens Aston Martin's championship ambitions.
Context:
New ADUO system may grant Honda maximum development opportunities due to severe performance deficit.