Formula 1 is reportedly considering a rule change to the engine regulations to help Honda’s power unit, which is well below the rest of the field’s threshold.
Aston Martin made the bold move to sign up with Honda, which has powered F1 title contenders at Red Bull for several years.
Before their success at Red Bull, Honda failed to make a great impression, going through reliability issues and a performance gap. Still, with the help of the energy-drink racing team, the engine manufacturer found its footing.
However, Red Bull decided to go all in on building their own power unit in-house, partnering with Ford, while Honda was seemingly left on the outside of the sport.
Aston Martin, which was previously powered by Mercedes, decided to move away from being a customer team and form an exclusive partnership with Honda, making it the only car powered by the Japanese car company’s F1 engine.
2026 is a year when a completely new engine formula enters the sport, and Honda has gotten the new power unit totally wrong, with a serious vibration problem that is preventing drivers from finishing races.
Even when it does hold up enough to compete, it is the worst engine on the grid. As a result, according to Jon Noble of The Race, the rival manufacturers are considering making changes to help Honda’s power units.
“It seems for me there’s one engine manufacturer that has a problem, and we need to help,” Mercedes CEO Toto Wolff said. “But then all the others are pretty much in the same ballpark.”
The changes would be to the Additional Development and Upgrade Opportunities (ADUO) rules. This would unlock additional development time and opportunities just for Honda, giving them time to figure out what is really happening with their engine.
What changes is Honda making for the Miami Grand Prix?
According to Shintaro Orihara, Honda’s trackside general manager and chief engineer, the team has kept one car at its factory to address the problem causing the vibration issues.
“We have made some progress, allowing us to implement further countermeasures in Miami and later in the season,” Orihara said.
“Realistically, this progress will not have a visible impact on the power unit performance on track, so we shouldn’t be expecting big jumps forward here.”