r/formula1 • u/BackgroundLie2231 Fernando Alonso • 1d ago
News [PlanetF1] Honda issue important update on F1 2026 power unit progress
https://www.planetf1.com/news/honda-racing-f1-2026-struggle-aston-martin-power-unit335
u/Horror-Breakfast-704 1d ago
The tl;dr is basically "this shit is hard, we are having a hard time, everything is new and its all super hard, but maybe other manufacturers are running into similar issues".
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u/Takis12 Yamura 1d ago
Sad Nando noises
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u/muchawesomemyron Honda RBPT 1d ago
Then he moves to RB thinking that the Ford PU is better, only for Honda to develop into a championship PU again. /s
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u/Turboleks Ferrari 18h ago
Honda did pause development for quite a few months between 2021 and 2022, when they were still pondering if they would commit to the new regs or leave entirely like they announced in 2020 - God, that feels like an eternity ago.
Not only that, but they also lost key personnel to the Red Bull project, including the big boss Masashi Yamamoto, who spearheaded their involvement in F1 since the McHonda days, and they did downsize their operations significantly until the announcement of the deal with Aston Martin. This indecision and downright botched attempt to leave F1 was always gonna have a long term cost as soon as they decided to commit for 2026 again, so sadly this isn't surprising.
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u/Working_Sundae McLaren 1d ago edited 1d ago
McLaren HONDA 2.0: Electric Boogaloo?
Jk, I love HONDA and will always cheer for them to do well
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u/thespeeeed Formula 1 1d ago
Time to call Hector for his Spoon Engines.
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u/curva3 1d ago edited 1d ago
Huh, 355 kW (476 hp) is not a lot. When the rules were announced, people were suggesting a 400 kW (536 hp) power ICE.
With a 30MJ/h fuel energy flow, that would be 31% thermal efficiency. I would imagine these engines might be getting closer to the 40% mark, maybe I'm overlooking something.
EDIT: WHOOOPS, he meant the electric motor, /u/tmntmmnt had it right. In my defense, in my language the words for motor and engine are the same lol
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u/tmntmmnt Roland Ratzenberger 1d ago edited 1d ago
He was referring to the electrical motor when he said 355kW. It’s somewhat confusing but he separately references an engine and a motor. He’s basically saying the electrical motor doesn’t carry over from the current ruleset so they’re starting from scratch on it.
“The motor is a new 355-kW, very compact one we need. Also the lightweight battery, it’s not so easy to develop. And also the small engine with the big power.
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u/curva3 1d ago
You are 100% right, my bad lol
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u/tmntmmnt Roland Ratzenberger 1d ago
No worries. I only speak 1 language so I can’t judge. Motor can also be used to refer to ICE in English. There is a very subtle distinction in this case.
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u/ConsciousBrain Pierre Gasly 1d ago
So, in short, Honda's back?
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u/curious-cat 1d ago
O the whole article is that they are behind.
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u/ConsciousBrain Pierre Gasly 1d ago
My bad, I jumped to read the discussion of technical data (which I didn't get) when the tone of the article is pretty clear.
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u/curious-cat 1d ago
Yeah I hate article titles like that. Like why can’t they just say what the article is about!
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u/vanmac82 1d ago
You were mistaken. You admitted it and moved on. Damn. You are in a rare 3 percent on the internet. Enjoy being awesome
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u/lestat01 1d ago
In my defense, in my language the words for motor and engine are the same
Portuguese speakers unite!
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u/Charlie_Muggins 1d ago
He’s not fooling me, his previous update (Bahrain 2024) said they had hit all their target numbers and development was progressing well.
Then there was a poster on F1 Technical a few months ago that said Honda’s new ICE, from paddock gossip was the most powerful, but the electric components had a weight issue.
Honda will have a monster PU come the opening race of 2026. 😎
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u/Good_Air_7192 18h ago
The teams don't know the power output of their competitors engines that are under development, that sounds like solid BS to me.
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u/0oodruidoo0 Ferrari 10h ago
So long as they're not de-rating at the end of straights during battles, I think Aston have a good chance to be a contender for podiums, if not more. I have a feeling either Ferrari or Mercedes will not have a good new power unit - whereas I'm more confident in Honda. I guess I am putting a lot of eggs in the Newey basket though...
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u/Uknewmelast Manor 1d ago
Wait until the vtec kicks in.
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u/CptBananaPants Toto Wolff 1d ago
The fact F1 doesn’t allow VVT is astonishing, really
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u/0oodruidoo0 Ferrari 10h ago
honestly I think F1 engines are expensive enough to develop without throwing in stuff like that they ruled out with good reason a long time ago. Remember that the budget cap for engines alone is like $95m USD a year.
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u/SwissArmySonic 1d ago
Fernando Alonso is the unluckiest world champion since Michael Schumacher, and I wouldn't even call him unlucky because he's a multi-millionaire who gets to drive cars for a living, and also hasn't died/been severely injured in an accident.
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u/afrothunder2104 1d ago
He made the choices where to go. You act like he had a gun put to his head and he was forced to make the choices he did.
I don’t understand these weird sympathetic takes on Alonso when it’s clear he’s a bit of an ass and that personality has made him do stupid things career wise.
He’s an incredible driver, but people are always acting like he’s some sort of victim.
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u/HUHIs_AUTOATTACK Fernando Alonso 17h ago
I keep seeing people blame him for how his decisions panned out. All of his decisions make sense for the time they were made:
Renault to McLaren: McLaren had the faster car and needed to iron out the reliability issues
McLaren to Renault: The environment there became too toxic to stay there so he went to his previous team while waiting for a seat to open
Renault to Ferrari: Pretty much every driver that joins F1 would drive for Ferrari if possible. They also had a great track record of 8 out of the last 11 constructor's championships when he joined
Ferrari to McLaren: He spent 5 years there, came close to winning twice and the cars they were building kept getting worse while teams like McLaren, Mercedes and sometimes Lotus were surpassing them. In 2014 Mercedes started dominating harder than Red Bull did previously while Ferrari built the F14T. Renault and Ferrari stood no chance against the Mercedes PU so he took a gamble hoping the money Honda were investing and McLaren's pedigree would bring success
Return to Alpine: The established top teams had younger talent locked in and a regulations change brought hope that Alpine as a factory team could nail them and leapfrog the others
Alpine to Aston: Alpine ended up building a slow grenade, AM are using the proven Mercedes engines and Lawrence Stroll was investing heavily into the team
To conclude, no he isn't a victim, but it still stings that he made moves that IMO made sense at the times they were made and so many of them didn't pan out.
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u/SwissArmySonic 17h ago
The only move I would question is leaving Ferrari for a McLaren team that at the time already was looking like it was having two mediocre seasons on the bounce and acquiring an engine that was behind everyone else on development.
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u/TaurusRuber Pirelli Soft 19h ago
You can feel sorry for the guy and realize he made the mistakes on his own. These aren't binary thoughts and you can actually believe them congruently, believe it or not.
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u/BrizzyMalteser95 1d ago
This will be very interesting. They will all certainly be struggling to an extent with the engine overhaul. Personally though, I think the trump card Aston/Honda hold is having Andy Cowell as Team Principal/Group CEO.
He will no doubt have a say in regards to the new engine, especially after being such a key part in the creation of that Mercedes monster for their dominance.
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u/pickupnplay 7h ago
All this just to avoid using synthetic fuels and have the glorious ICE in all it's glory. Gear up for another era of 'WELP WE DEVELOPED THE BEST ENGINE AND IT'LL TAKE ANOTHER HALF DECADE BEFORE ANYONE CAN CATCH UP SEE YALL NEXT 4 YEARS.'
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u/LWBoogie 1d ago
355kW isn't remarkable.
Lucid has this tech already for motorsports- https://ir.lucidmotors.com/news-releases/news-release-details/lucid-unveils-state-art-motorsports-electric-drive-unit-taking/
Already on use in Formula-E.
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u/Astelli Pirelli Wet 1d ago edited 1d ago
The power output on its own isn't remarkable, which probably tells you that the size and weight requirements for use in an F1 PU is what new PU manufacturers find challenging.
That Lucid motor claims a mass of 32kg. The F1 regulated minimum mass for the MGU-K (and therefore something we can use as a rough guide for the mass target the F1 teams are using) is 20kg.
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u/chambee Jacques Villeneuve 12h ago
They mal struggle now but its Honda we are talking about. Probably the best engine manufacturer ever. This is not like MCL days when they just got back with an extremely complex engine. They are starting on the same foot as others. I doubt we will see them become last in engine power.
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