Honda have offered some insight into the updated power unit Aston Martin will run from the Dutch Grand Prix onwards, which should go hand-in-hand with their recent upgrades to help them improve through the midfield.<\/p>\n
Despite widespread excitement around their collaboration, the 2026 season got off to a difficult start as Aston Martin<\/a> found themselves at the bottom of the pecking order with the power unit suffering from vibration issues and poor reliability.<\/p>\n The teething problems were fixed in the early rounds, allowing them to switch their attention to planning upgrades later in the year. Unlike many of their rivals, they opted to introduce a B-spec car at the Hungarian Grand Prix<\/a> as opposed to bringing smaller updates to each weekend.<\/p>\n It appeared to be the right call, with the team surging ahead of Cadillac<\/a> and Williams<\/a> in Qualifying before Lance Stroll<\/a> and Fernando Alonso<\/a> claimed P13 and P14 respectively on race day.<\/p>\n Further progress is expected at the upcoming Dutch Grand Prix, where engine partner Honda will bring a second specification power unit that is intended to close the gap to faster competitors like Racing Bulls<\/a> and Alpine<\/a>.<\/p>\n Shintaro Orihara, Trackside General Manager and Chief Engineer at Honda, said: \u201cWe focused on improving engine performance, let\u2019s say to make combustion faster. It\u2019s kind of a secret, but I can disclose a little bit.<\/p>\n \u201cWe changed the pre-chamber to make combustion faster, and also we changed the piston shape to get good combustion. We modified some lubrication systems to reduce friction. We have a quite big list to improve engine performance.\u201d<\/p>\n