One F1 Team Is Reportedly Off To Such A Rough Start, They Have Plans To Retire From First Race
It has not been a fun offseason for Aston Martin and their new engine partner, Honda
The first race weekend of any Formula 1 season usually has teams roll into town with some degree of hope that maybe, just maybe, this will be their year.
That's especially true thanks to major regulations changes that have shaken up the cars and power units in some big ways, leaving the door open for some teams to make a surge up the running order as Brawn GP did in 2009 or like Mercedes did at the start of the turbo-hybrid era.
Unless you're Aston Martin.
It seems like they already know they're in for a world of pain.
Aston Martin has been a solid midfield team for a few years, and while they've dropped away from their podium-scoring peak in 2023, there was a lot of hope for them going into 2026. That's because, in addition to having two-time champ Fernando Alonso in one of their cars, design wiz Adrian Newey is their team principal, and they're moving to Honda power units.
Honda has been in and out of F1 a few times over the years, and their last stint was through the early 2020s with Red Bull. During that time, their engines helped Max Verstappen win four championships, and the team took a couple of constructors' titles.
While they bowed out a few years ago, they provided some support to Red Bull Powertrains before Ford came on board for this season.
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So, you can understand the excitement around this… until we got to testing, which was a debacle.
The new Honda engine has been a nightmare cocktail of unreliable and underpowered, and in turn, limited the running the team was able to get on track during preseason testing. Honda revealed that one issue was the vibrations from the V6 engine, causing the battery to fail.
In a powerunit where the output between the internal combustion engine and the batteries is a 50/50 split, that's a huge problem.
But, it just got worse with reports that Aston Martin already plans to bow out of the season-opening Australian Grand Prix after just a few laps.
Aston Martin's Honda era is off to a brutal start, and looks like it'll get worse in Australia. (Photo by Simon Galloway/LAT Images)
Aston Martin Plans To Call It Quits Early In The Season-Opener
According to Motorsport, the preseason testing mess left Honda without many spare parts, and that's one reason why the Silverstone-based team reportedly plans to qualify for the Grand Prix, but only by getting in under the 107% which requires teams set a time no slower than 107% of the fastest time (although stewards can wave this if you showed enough pace in practice).
After that, they'll do a few laps and then call it a day.
Skipping the race was reportedly considered, but doing so would mean paying a penalty… so yeah, just show up to some parade laps then go chill on the beach.
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I'm sure if this is the plan — and for the reasons reported — it's set in stone… but what happens if we get a race like we had last year?
That was a race of attrition that even had Isack Hadjar — then with Racing Bulls — crashing out on the formation lap.
Is the team in a position to go on if they see a bunch of cars crash out or suffer damage in an early crash? What if it rains?
It'll be fascinating to see how things pan out if that happens.
But, no matter what happens, there's no question that Aston Martin is having an absolute nightmare of a 2026 season, and we haven't even started the first practice session.