Honda Power Unit Hardware & Software

[GhostF1]

This Honda "training ground" tripe needs to stop. No team with the ambition of McLaren or AMR would ever sacrifice its own future on a Honda trainee program. They went in with the expectation that Honda could produce a competitive engine in short order (if not immediately in the case of 2026), and that was 100% the ambition that Honda communicated to them otherwise they would never have signed a partnership. The fact that Honda in both cases failed to deliver something competitive is what has necessitated all these weird theories and excuses about what their purpose in F1 really is. The reality is that Honda underestimated the challenge and overpromised in terms of what they could deliver, and that is 100% on them. If you say you are going to do something do it, don't come with 50 different excuses including "we started late" and "we never even intended to be good right away, we are just training". It's all cope

Let's be very clear, there are far more cost-effective and reputation-sparing ways of educating young engineers than having an F1 program full of rookies. It is also not very educational to be in a dysfunctional working group without adequate leadership and direction. You'd learn far quicker how to be a successful engineer under the tutelage of a James Allison or Ben Hodgkinson. Honda by comparison looks like a hen house.

I highly doubt James Allison or Ben Hodgkinson could teach Honda R&D anything about ICEs.

I don't disagree with you, you'd expect that Honda would be a "Self Starter". They're haven't been, so you either keep a tight leash on them or you get another partner. AMR F1 NEW that that Honda had been a slow starter in the past. Nobody did anything at AMR F1 till Nov 2025. They were waiting for Newey to arrive and check ? Once they checked and learned there was a disaster pending, they turned up the screws but it takes a long time to react in the PU space.

The results speak for themselves. And I don't mean those two personally teaching people obviously, I used their names as proxies for the organisations they lead. I think a young engineer would have learned more about good engine development working for HPP or RBPT in the last 3 years or so over Honda.

They went in with the expectation that Honda could produce a competitive engine in short order (if not immediately in the case of 2026), and that was 100% the ambition that Honda communicated to them otherwise they would never have signed a partnership…

One could just as easily say the Honda would have expected Aston to provide a competitive chassis and aero package at the start if the season…

Sure, but there's levels to uncompetitiveness. The Aston chassis is bad, but not uniquely bad. They are in the ballpark with the likes of Williams and Haas, and well ahead of Cadillac. The engine is uniquely bad. We are talking a power deficit estimated to be over 10% to the leading ICE, and probably in excess of 5% to the second worst ICE. The engine is basically as uncompetitive as Cadillac's chassis, the difference being Cadillac is a newcomer and Honda won the last 3 races of 2025.

No.. the chassis was uniquely bad. There has not been a time in recent memory where a chassis alone was 4 seconds off the pace.

This is not to say I don't have every trust they will turn it around and quickly so.

[GhostF1]

For a different formula.

Where a majority of the power unit is very similar. As mentioned previously. Koji Watanabe specifically pointed out the vibrations produced by the power unit are almost identical to those produced in the last engine and they were not an issue with Red Bull at all. Integration between both entity's is key here, amateur to imply otherwise.

What is this narrative Honda needs help to succeed? It's beyond short sighted and there are valid explanations that have hindered them, but it seems the drama avenue is preferred over actual technical analysis.

- 2015: Joined earlier than desired, had been totally out of F1, needed to rebuild, no existing engineers from other teams were employed to assist in engine design (as is the case with Audi and RBPT and with a similar ICE and reduced complexity). Admitted underestimating PU complexity.
- 2016: Engine greatly improved, but hamstrung by restrictive token system preventing desired redesign and fast updates. Band-aid fixes like the raised intake plenum for a larger turbo were necessary.
- 2017: Token system dropped. New engine architecture introduced, still learning/researching pre-chamber capabilities and split turbo, physical size restricted by team, very pre-mature MGU-H design.
- 2018: Large step forward with Toro Rosso, Honda Jet staff brought in for MGU-H. Surpasses Renault
- 2019-2020: Continual steps forward, power unit is competitive and winning races. Surpasses Ferrari in 2019 (I'm ignoring the dodgy Ferrari engine for the first half of the season).
- 2021-2025: New PU architecture, which proceeded to be class of the field for 5 years, surpassing all rivals in most measurable aspects. Reliability, deployment, energy harvesting, driveability, power.

- 2026: Returned and began work 12 months later than competition with reduced staff. Avenues where Honda had great advantage on the ICE were completely removed by new regs. Reduced compression ratio, removal of MGU-H, removal of in cylinder pressure sensors during race weekend operations. All which completely stripped Honda's combustion technique from the previous engine. Forced to start again, most previous learnings nullified. New engine is down on output, matched with a very premature chassis while also learning how to integrate with a completely new team. Engine team is back to full strength early in the season.

By the sounds, the second specification has promise and they will only improve from here. They have only ever improved, regardless of where they started and end up surpassing rivals, so their development speed is impressive. If anything, it should give confidence for the future of what they can clearly do and have demonstrated. It is just disappointing uninformed management decisions cause them to flip flop in and out of F1, causing most of these issues. Going forward though with HRC now in charge as a separate entity to the Honda Global board room, that behaviour should halt entirely.

tl;dr: They have always started while facing adversity, but always recover and do so quickly. Literally zero basis for this "can't do it on their own" narrative.

Excuses.

- Joining when you are not ready is on you, no one forced Honda to return. When you take on a partnership and say you can deliver on time it's up to you to fulfill that obligation.
- Joining late does not account for the 6 years it took to catch up or the absolutely enormous power deficits they started with in 2015 and 2026. Having a 10%+ HP deficit in modern F1 is crazy, especially for a global manufacturer with Honda's pedigree.
- There are other teams who had more catching up to do than Honda. RBPT needed to build a factory and assemble an entire team from nothing + they had no previous IP or automotive technology to rely on. Audi also built their team from scratch with no previous IP. Honda already had a world class factory, they had personnel within the company with huge F1 experience, and they had genuinely competitive IP to draw from. They had all the pre-requisites to deliver something at least decent and they came up with a total dud. The contrast between the expectations and the reality of what they delivered speaks volumes here.

- They literally said they will be 1-2 years behind on development. This was well communicated right back from 2023.
- They joined in 2015, overtook Renault in 2018, became race winning competitive in 2019 and were only second to Merc until 2021 where they progressed to being the best of the field. So it's not about "catching up", they did more than that, they completely surpassed the entire competition. Why are you minimising that achievement? More appropriate questions should be how did they do that?? and what were the other three doing?
- RBPT and Audi were working on this engine long before Honda and are literally run by engineers scavenged from other manufacturers who have nearly 10 years plus experience on these engines, while also being a more simple design for this year. Audi literally said they wanted the architecture to change enough that other teams had minimal data so it would shrink their advantages. This isn't even a remotely close comparison and is disingenuous to suggest so.
- Agree the engine is off the pace, although it was expected to be. Car and integration issues likely worsened this scenario. Their internal target was to halve the deficit and they recently announced they have achieved that with this update. Let's not bomb the entire team. It's been 5 months...

[diffuser]

I think the biggest improvement we'll see from the Honda PU will be in regeneration. I think the HP boost will help but not as much as the fix for the oscillations and vibrations will have on race pace.

[peewon]

A 5+ second gap, where 4 seconds of that was down to the chassis alone is atrocious, no matter which way you spin it. They could have had the Merc rocket PU in the back and still be behind Cadillac with that deficit.
So you providing excuses for AM and saying it's ok, but in the same breath rubbishing Honda, who were open about their position from the start and have clear reasons for why they are where they are (an engine 4-8% down)... I really don't know what else to say to someone in a productive context who holds a weird dual stance like that.

You keep saying the chasis was off by 4 seconds and thats simply not true. Youre taking their gap in Spa which is a power hungry track and then comparing it to Hungary which is not a power dependant track and basing the difference down to their chassis upgrade. This is wrong on multiple fronts.

First of all if you compare the pole time to the best AM time, the gap in Spa was 5.7 seconds and in Hungary it was 2.6 seconds.

Second of all, if you race the new spec AM at Spa they still would not be 4 seconds better. The diff would be about 2~2.5 seconds.

Third, if you look at Australia, the qualifying gap was 3.4 seconds. The chassis couldnt be more than 2 seconds off in that. And now they are firmly 5th or better.

Its pretty obvious they did not try to improve the Chassis throughour the year like other teams in increments and lost ground. They had to wait to resolve the vibration issue and chose to bring in one massive upgrade which they have done.

So this idea that chassis alone was 4 seconds off is utter non sense. Its based on stupid deductions.

[peewon]

- They literally said they will be 1-2 years behind on development. This was well communicated right back from 2023.
- They joined in 2015, overtook Renault in 2018, became race winning competitive in 2019 and were only second to Merc until 2021 where they progressed to being the best of the field. So it's not about "catching up", they did more than that, they completely surpassed the entire competition. Why are you minimising that achievement? More appropriate questions should be how did they do that?? and what were the other three doing?
- RBPT and Audi were working on this engine long before Honda and are literally run by engineers scavenged from other manufacturers who have nearly 10 years plus experience on these engines, while also being a more simple design for this year. Audi literally said they wanted the architecture to change enough that other teams had minimal data so it would shrink their advantages. This isn't even a remotely close comparison and is disingenuous to suggest so.
- Agree the engine is off the pace, although it was expected to be. Car and integration issues likely worsened this scenario. Their internal target was to halve the deficit and they recently announced they have achieved that with this update. Let's not bomb the entire team. It's been 5 months...

At no point did Honda "completely surpass competition". Mercedes had higher raw horsepower till the engine freeze whereas Honda had better energy deployment and drivability after 2021. Even if you look at 2021, Red Bull was nowhere near Mercedes on power tracks like Interlagos. And then we had an Engine freeze from 2022. Red Bull has won 4 titles with Renault. Everyone knows Renault was not the best.

Saying it took them 3 years to surpass a manufacturer who had a reputation for being completely uniterested in funding its operation is not a flex. Ferrari got nerfed by the FIA.

Yes they eventually catch up to their credit and given enough time, I would back them to do it again. But its inexcusable to start so far behind and yet have so poor reliability that it becomes impossible to even test or race. And they have done that twice.

[Badger]

I highly doubt James Allison or Ben Hodgkinson could teach Honda R&D anything about ICEs.

I don't disagree with you, you'd expect that Honda would be a "Self Starter". They're haven't been, so you either keep a tight leash on them or you get another partner. AMR F1 NEW that that Honda had been a slow starter in the past. Nobody did anything at AMR F1 till Nov 2025. They were waiting for Newey to arrive and check ? Once they checked and learned there was a disaster pending, they turned up the screws but it takes a long time to react in the PU space.

The results speak for themselves. And I don't mean those two personally teaching people obviously, I used their names as proxies for the organisations they lead. I think a young engineer would have learned more about good engine development working for HPP or RBPT in the last 3 years or so over Honda.

One could just as easily say the Honda would have expected Aston to provide a competitive chassis and aero package at the start if the season…

Sure, but there's levels to uncompetitiveness. The Aston chassis is bad, but not uniquely bad. They are in the ballpark with the likes of Williams and Haas, and well ahead of Cadillac. The engine is uniquely bad. We are talking a power deficit estimated to be over 10% to the leading ICE, and probably in excess of 5% to the second worst ICE. The engine is basically as uncompetitive as Cadillac's chassis, the difference being Cadillac is a newcomer and Honda won the last 3 races of 2025.

No.. the chassis was uniquely bad. There has not been a time in recent memory where a chassis alone was 4 seconds off the pace.

This is not to say I don't have every trust they will turn it around and quickly so.

What are you talking about? The chassis has never been more than 4 seconds behind on its own. In Spa they were 4s behind the lead car in Q1, and more than half of that deficit was coming from the PU. The chassis was at most 2 seconds behind before the upgrade, and probably more like 1 second behind in its current state. It’s a normal “bad” chassis that we see all the time. Also, the deficit was exaggerated when they decided to delay the upgrades into one massive package. Under normal circumstances (not having a dud engine) they would have had more progressive upgrades and the chassis gap wouldn’t have opened up the way it did pre-Hungary.

[GhostF1]

A 5+ second gap, where 4 seconds of that was down to the chassis alone is atrocious, no matter which way you spin it. They could have had the Merc rocket PU in the back and still be behind Cadillac with that deficit.
So you providing excuses for AM and saying it's ok, but in the same breath rubbishing Honda, who were open about their position from the start and have clear reasons for why they are where they are (an engine 4-8% down)... I really don't know what else to say to someone in a productive context who holds a weird dual stance like that.

You keep saying the chasis was off by 4 seconds and thats simply not true. Youre taking their gap in Spa which is a power hungry track and then comparing it to Hungary which is not a power dependant track and basing the difference down to their chassis upgrade. This is wrong on multiple fronts.

First of all if you compare the pole time to the best AM time, the gap in Spa was 5.7 seconds and in Hungary it was 2.6 seconds.

Second of all, if you race the new spec AM at Spa they still would not be 4 seconds better. The diff would be about 2~2.5 seconds.

Third, if you look at Australia, the qualifying gap was 3.4 seconds. The chassis couldnt be more than 2 seconds off in that. And now they are firmly 5th or better.

Its pretty obvious they did not try to improve the Chassis throughour the year like other teams in increments and lost ground. They had to wait to resolve the vibration issue and chose to bring in one massive upgrade which they have done.

So this idea that chassis alone was 4 seconds off is utter non sense. Its based on stupid deductions.

They literally gained 1.5-2s seconds (at least) in Hungary with the B-spec lol. Their words. At a chassis focused track. If they raced the first chassis, yes they would be nearly 4 seconds off. And at Spa, no they wouldn't be 4 seconds better off, you're right, because the new car isn't suddenly just as fast as the top cars. No one has suggested the new car has gained that gap, because it hasn't, but it has caught up significantly.

Their simulations literally showed their old car was nearly 4 seconds off as an average across all tracks in the calendar. Sorry, 3.8s. It isn't stupid deductions, your comparisons are non-sensical, using the new cars quali time in Hungary as evidence they aren't that far off (obviously the new car is faster, which is great) but then saying the new car wouldn't be 4s faster (no of course not, to imply that would be to say it's the best car on the grid out of nowhere). We have to talk averages here and the entire point of the conversation is of the deficit the chassis v engine has. The engine was responsible for 25% of the deficit before the B-spec arrived.

My entire confusion in this thread is, even though it is clear the engine is the runt of the grid, there is a strong implication it is the biggest issue with this car which is just so untrue. I'll say it again. You put the Merc PU in the back of that A-spec chassis and they would still be with Cadillac. You put it in the B-spec car and we are talking nearly Racing Bulls level. Which is a great step forward but there is still a long way to go chassis wise. Extrapolate what you want from that.

[GhostF1]

- They literally said they will be 1-2 years behind on development. This was well communicated right back from 2023.
- They joined in 2015, overtook Renault in 2018, became race winning competitive in 2019 and were only second to Merc until 2021 where they progressed to being the best of the field. So it's not about "catching up", they did more than that, they completely surpassed the entire competition. Why are you minimising that achievement? More appropriate questions should be how did they do that?? and what were the other three doing?
- RBPT and Audi were working on this engine long before Honda and are literally run by engineers scavenged from other manufacturers who have nearly 10 years plus experience on these engines, while also being a more simple design for this year. Audi literally said they wanted the architecture to change enough that other teams had minimal data so it would shrink their advantages. This isn't even a remotely close comparison and is disingenuous to suggest so.
- Agree the engine is off the pace, although it was expected to be. Car and integration issues likely worsened this scenario. Their internal target was to halve the deficit and they recently announced they have achieved that with this update. Let's not bomb the entire team. It's been 5 months...

At no point did Honda "completely surpass competition". Mercedes had higher raw horsepower till the engine freeze whereas Honda had better energy deployment and drivability after 2021. Even if you look at 2021, Red Bull was nowhere near Mercedes on power tracks like Interlagos. And then we had an Engine freeze from 2022. Red Bull has won 4 titles with Renault. Everyone knows Renault was not the best.

Saying it took them 3 years to surpass a manufacturer who had a reputation for being completely uniterested in funding its operation is not a flex. Ferrari got nerfed by the FIA.

Yes they eventually catch up to their credit and given enough time, I would back them to do it again. But its inexcusable to start so far behind and yet have so poor reliability that it becomes impossible to even test or race. And they have done that twice.

I'm not sure what your goal was with this response as you begin by disagreeing they surpassed the competition, but then you end it with saying that they did.

It's well documented, there's zero need to go into this. And Ferrari... yeah no.

[mzso]

Wow, that's Ispano levels of bias.
This year is far more similar to 2015 than you claim, but even worse. They fully ignored the magnitude of the task, didn't bother to put everyone necessary back on the project, as soon as the decision was mad. And we got what we got.
(And no, adversity implies and external hindrance. Internally it's failing.)

And then you pile on AM, where new key people had far less time and not because of themselves, but gardening leaves, waiting for a wind tunnel that was just getting ready, and such. Also it's no surprise that they didn't bother to fix anything gradually seeing the amount of issues and the fact that even if they did the power gap would be huge.

Lmao how is it bias??
You yourself are literally minimising every single aspect of this project at any chance you get to feed into some rage bait delusion while also completely ignoring all accomplishments as well. What I'm trying to do is wade through you're outrage and provide a balanced context..

The reality is there are clear explanations for why they are where they are, whether you want to personally acknowledge them or not. Yes it is frustrating Honda flip-flop in and out of F1 and basically cause grievances for themselves but it isn't all surprises where none of this was communicated. They announced a return with Aston, acknowledged they will need to rebuild the team and are a year or two behind development, so are expecting a slow start. That is what we have, I agree a touch worse than expected but this seems more a collaboratively poor effect rather than just Honda. This narrative of ignoring their honest communications over the last 3 years and then still getting angry they are behind is just demonstrating a fundamentally poor understanding about how F1 works.
It is also nowhere near 2015 levels of unpreparedness! The engine architecture, facilities and path forward all completely known and set and within 6 months we already have an engine update they are happy with and will likely halve the deficit and then only improve from there. They have no concerns over a way forward and have confidence. All which they lacked in 2015.

I didn't pile on AM, it is literally what they have done. They are not a new team, they are well financed and backed, have not stopped or disbanded or sold facilities or have an entirely new workforce. Yes true, they have some new key people and had some gardening leave to deal with which will obviously create issues and a slow mid-tier start, but they didn't just have a poor car off the bat that was premature, they started with one of the worst cars ever produced in Formula 1.
A 5+ second gap, where 4 seconds of that was down to the chassis alone is atrocious, no matter which way you spin it. They could have had the Merc rocket PU in the back and still be behind Cadillac with that deficit.
So you providing excuses for AM and saying it's ok, but in the same breath rubbishing Honda, who were open about their position from the start and have clear reasons for why they are where they are (an engine 4-8% down)... I really don't know what else to say to someone in a productive context who holds a weird dual stance like that.

Which means they should be in a far better state then this. And what you list verifies an opposing view to you. They had much better foundations but delivered a PU that's as least as uncompetitive. They did a worse job than in 2015 or even Aston. As you said they had the proper background, and even the people. They only needed to put all the engineers necessary on the project. Which the very much neglected to do. With a reasonable good job they should have been Red Bull level at the start of the year. (And being better than Audi should have been a minimum accomplishment, even if things didn't go smoothly.)

No-one said it's okay for Aston to build a poor car, but they did have a lot less time, and then crippling vibrations and massive power gap made any fix, or incremental development pointless under the cost cap.

"5+ second gap, where 4 seconds of that was down to the chassis alone" - These seems to be purely your creative numbers.

One can only hope they will be up to speed now. And the engine delivers on its rumored promise.

[ispano6]

Integration didn't go well the first time did it? That's on Cowell.

Cowell is to blame, but because there was no proper integration, he was busy playing team principal, trying to turn the AMR25 into a rocket when he should have been preparing the team for Newey's arrival and keeping a close eye on what was happening at Honda.

The catalyst for the problem was Newey and Cardile arriving during the 2025 season. By then, Honda was already significantly behind, and it was too late to make the necessary changes in time for the start of the 2026 season.

To make matters worse, Newey didn't like the direction the AMR26 was heading and made major changes that also affected Honda, putting everyone even further behind. The chassis arrived too late for Honda to carry out meaningful testing before the season, leaving them with little opportunity beyond on-track running. The result was the perfect storm.

History has shown that in F1 Honda always needs help to make progress.
They can do it but needs guidance.
When McLaren helped they progressed.
When Redbull helped they progressed.
When Aston helped they progressed (allegedly). Every time they tried alone and didn't work.

You are clearly wrong and biased. McLaren didn't help at all. RedBull allowed Honda to do their thing with Toro Rosso, and Honda helped ExxonMobil create the fuel. And you also failed to give Franz Tost credit. He was really the one who helped Honda. You fail to give Honda due credit. Honda succeeded tapping Honda Jet and Honda Motorcycle division. Mclaren nor RedBull helped with anything with the power unit. Get your facts straight.

Just read Alonso's quote about how Honda helped Aston Martin with their weaknesses at the beginning of the season. This was an weakness in understanding integration. It was on Cowell to see to it that the integration went smoothly. It took taking the car to Honda's Sakura VTB for the team to realize there aspects of the chassis that clearly had issues. Asaki described how the new MGUK's vibrations would need to be mitigated by the chassis and it would be crucial to get it right.

[Badger]

- They literally said they will be 1-2 years behind on development. This was well communicated right back from 2023.
- They joined in 2015, overtook Renault in 2018, became race winning competitive in 2019 and were only second to Merc until 2021 where they progressed to being the best of the field. So it's not about "catching up", they did more than that, they completely surpassed the entire competition. Why are you minimising that achievement? More appropriate questions should be how did they do that?? and what were the other three doing?
- RBPT and Audi were working on this engine long before Honda and are literally run by engineers scavenged from other manufacturers who have nearly 10 years plus experience on these engines, while also being a more simple design for this year. Audi literally said they wanted the architecture to change enough that other teams had minimal data so it would shrink their advantages. This isn't even a remotely close comparison and is disingenuous to suggest so.
- Agree the engine is off the pace, although it was expected to be. Car and integration issues likely worsened this scenario. Their internal target was to halve the deficit and they recently announced they have achieved that with this update. Let's not bomb the entire team. It's been 5 months...

At no point did Honda "completely surpass competition". Mercedes had higher raw horsepower till the engine freeze whereas Honda had better energy deployment and drivability after 2021. Even if you look at 2021, Red Bull was nowhere near Mercedes on power tracks like Interlagos. And then we had an Engine freeze from 2022. Red Bull has won 4 titles with Renault. Everyone knows Renault was not the best.

Saying it took them 3 years to surpass a manufacturer who had a reputation for being completely uniterested in funding its operation is not a flex. Ferrari got nerfed by the FIA.

Yes they eventually catch up to their credit and given enough time, I would back them to do it again. But its inexcusable to start so far behind and yet have so poor reliability that it becomes impossible to even test or race. And they have done that twice.

I'm not sure what your goal was with this response as you begin by disagreeing they surpassed the competition, but then you end it with saying that they did.

It's well documented, there's zero need to go into this. And Ferrari... yeah no.

That’s not what he said at all. “Catching up” is not the same as “surpassing”. Why argue in bad faith?

It’s true that at no point did Honda have an engine that “surpassed” Mercedes. Between 2022-2025 it was very competitive, but the top 3 engines were pretty much neck and neck. Honda never produced a dominant V6 engine whereas Merc has had many that were clearly top of class (14, 15, 16, 17, 20, 26).

[hollus]

Why do we have an “it’s all Honda’s fault” camp and an “it’s all Aston’s fault” camp?
That 4 second figure is clearly hyperbolae.
On top of the well documented forfeit of chassis upgrades, the engine was nerfed to make sure that the chassis would not shake anything to to pieces and the chassis was nerfed (lots of extra weight) to make sure that the engine would or some transmission part would not shake everything to pieces.
This binary blame game is silly.

And everyone, please keep it civil. Calling the “enemy” camp stupid, even implying it, will get warnings. That never lef to more intelligent discussion or any learnings. Basic civility, please.