Mercedes: Aston Martin made “conscious decision” not…

Aston Martin made a “conscious decision” to pick Honda Formula 1 engines, Mercedes team principal Toto Wolff has insisted.

Aston Martin is bracing itself for a calamitous Australian Grand Prix, and potentially an equally disastrous 2026 F1 season, due to its Honda power unit’s crippling flaws.

Excessive engine vibrations keep causing battery failures, to the extent that the team is running out of spares in Melbourne. But those vibrations aren’t wreaking havoc only mechanically, as drivers Fernando Alonso and Lance Stroll believe they can’t cover more than 25 or 15 laps consecutively before risking permanent nerve damage to their hands.

Aston Martin became Honda’s works team this season after the Silverstone-based outfit used Mercedes powertrains from 2009 to 2025. Unlike Honda, Mercedes does look very competitive again in F1’s new engine era, and Wolff has made it clear that the German brand did not make the decision to drop Aston Martin as a customer.

“Aston Martin was a client and a partner of Mercedes over those many years and we still deliver engines and other components to the road car side, so that wasn't a Mercedes decision to not go with Aston Martin,” Wolff said. “I think it was a conscious decision to become a works team with Honda with their partner Aramco, and that's why we had to let them go.”

Asked if he would have preferred Mercedes power, Newey replied: “We are where we are with Honda. Obviously our focus now is to work with Honda to get to the best possible place. Being realistic this season is first of all as I mentioned getting on top of this vibration problem so we can run reliably, and from there to see how much performance they can add to the combustion engine in particular.

“Then at the same time of course Honda need to start to be working on the '27 engine because it's clear that a very large step in combustion engine power is needed for '27 and that has to be their sole focus.”

It is telling for Newey to publicly say Honda needs to focus on next year, meaning 2026 is already a write-off for Aston Martin.

Adrian Newey, Aston Martin Racing (Photo by: Kym Illman / Getty Images)

The legendary British engineer enjoyed much success in the past with Honda as the Red Bull cars he designed won four consecutive drivers’ titles with Max Verstappen. However, the Japanese manufacturer’s half-baked F1 exit – which ended up being a U-turn – meant its F1 staff was largely renewed for the 2026 project and potentially lacking experience.

Asked if Aston was aware of that lack of experience when it signed the works engine deal, and whether it would have been signed if not, Newey said: “No we weren't. We only really became aware of it kind of November of last year when we – Lawrence [Stroll], Andy Cowell and myself – went to Tokyo to discuss rumours starting to suggest that their original target they wouldn't achieve for race one, and out of that came the fact that many of the original workforce had not returned when they restarted, so no is the answer.”