Aston blindsided by Honda staffing crisis – Newey

Mar.6 (GMM) Aston Martin only discovered after signing its Honda works deal that the Japanese manufacturer had lost the bulk of its experienced engineering staff – a revelation that goes to the heart of the team’s deepening crisis in Melbourne.

Adrian Newey said on Friday that the bombshell only emerged in November last year, when he travelled to Tokyo alongside team owner Lawrence Stroll and CEO Andy Cowell to investigate “rumours” that Honda would miss its original power targets for the season opener.

“We only really became aware of it in November of last year,” Newey said. “Out of that came the fact that many of the original workforce had not returned when they restarted. So, no – we weren’t aware.”

Newey explained that Honda, formerly in alliance with Red Bull, had pulled out at the end of 2021 and when it reformed, much of its championship-winning engineering team had dispersed.

“A lot of the original group had, it now transpires, disbanded and gone to work on solar panels or whatever,” he said. “A lot of the group that reformed are actually fresh to Formula 1. They didn’t bring the experience that they had had previously.

“Plus, when they came back in 2023, that was the first year of the budget cap introduction for engines, so all their rivals had been developing away through ’21 and ’22 with continuity, their existing team, and free of budget cap.

“They re-entered with, let’s say, only around 30 percent of their original team, and now in a budget cap era, so they started very much on the back foot.”

The consequences are playing out in real time at Albert Park. Aston Martin arrived in Melbourne with four batteries and has already lost two to conditioning and communication failures, leaving the team with only the two currently installed in its cars – and with China just one week away.

“Given our kind of rate of battery damage, it is quite a scary place to be in,” Newey acknowledged.

When asked whether replacement batteries could be flown in, his answer was blunt: “Unfortunately not. There aren’t any.”

With Aston unable to complete meaningful low-fuel running – fuel acts as a damper to the battery and Honda has severely restricted how much they can do – the team is caught in a vicious cycle.

As for Honda’s urgent pre-Melbourne countermeasures, Fernando Alonso was blunt: “It didn’t feel much different to Bahrain.”

Toto Wolff, asked about the prospect of Aston Martin running Mercedes power instead, made clear the separation had been the team’s own choice. “It was a conscious decision to become a works team, with Honda, with their partner Aramco, and that’s why we had to let them go,” the Mercedes boss said.

Newey admitted the situation is taking a heavy human toll. “Our mechanics were up until four o’clock this morning. They’re on their knees.”

As for whether Aston Martin can even get both cars to the grid on Sunday, Newey would not commit. “It’s very difficult to be concrete at the moment about that.”

He also said Honda must now urgently shift focus to the 2027 power unit. “It’s clear that a very large step in combustion engine power is needed for ’27, and that has to be their sole focus,” he said.

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