The priority is to win with Aston Martin. Honda had signed an exclusive agreement with the British company for the supply of the 2026 power unit, when F1 will debut the new agile cars, equipped with engines that will be 50% powered by electric power from the hybrid system, with the remaining 50% ensured by the 6-cylinder turbo internal combustion engine.
Currently, the Japanese company supports Red Bull and Racing Bull, but starting next season, they will be closely tied with Aston Martin, benefiting from the important support of Aramco as a qualified supplier of zero-emission fuel and the genius of Adrian Newey, whom they already know very well.
However, beyond the relationship with the official team, Aston Martin, Honda is considering expanding its presence to customer teams, touching on a topic that, at least until now, had never come up.
In fact, when HRC registered as a brand authorized to discuss the 2026 regulations, several teams had shown interest in a possible supply of Honda’s power unit. Now that the exclusive collaboration with Aston Martin has entered an advanced phase, it cannot be ruled out that HRC may want to expand its presence in F1 by providing engines to another team.
“We are a racing company, so if the opportunity arose to supply our PU to more teams, we would like to pursue it,” said Watanabe, head of HRC.
“We are not ruling anything out. However, for now, our main goal is to establish a strong collaboration with our factory partner, Aston Martin. At this stage, we do not plan to expand our supply to more teams, nor are we at that point yet.”
Tetsushi Kakuda, head of Honda’s F1 project, is focused solely on the growing relationship with Aston Martin, but he is aware that in the medium term, there could be space to support two more teams. The pebble in the pond has been thrown…
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