Tech Show: Why Honda's F1 engine fix is so difficult

The Race F1 Podcast

The Race Media Ltd

Sports

4.5 • 1K Ratings

🗓️ 26 March 2026

⏱️ 49 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

🧾️ Download transcript

Summary

Aston Martin's start to the season has been dogged by reliability problems, with serious vibrations from Honda's power unit damaging batteries beyond repair and leaving its drivers in pain. But who is to blame for these issues, and why is implementing a fix so difficult? Host Edd Straw and former F1 technical director Gary Anderson dig into those questions on the latest episode of The Race F1 Tech Show.

Gary also gives his views on the news that Aston Martin are set to bring in a new team principal to allow Adrian Newey to put all his focus on technical matters, shares his thoughts on power deployment at the upcoming Japanese Grand Prix, and answers questions from listeners on battery charging, front-axle harvesting and 3D scanning.

Got a tech question for Gary? Send it to podcasts@the-race.com

Get bonus F1 podcasts, extra content and ad-free listening, sign-up to The Race Members' Club on Patreon today. For a limited time you can get 90% off your first month!

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Transcript

Click on a timestamp to play from that location

0:00.0	The Athletic.
0:10.4	Gary tackles who's to blame for Aston Martin Honda's car and off-track troubles heading into the Japanese Grand Prix
0:15.8	and what we should expect from these new power units at Suzuki.
0:19.1	We also answer your questions on battery charging,
0:21.9	front axle harvesting and marker dots.
0:28.6	Welcome to the race F1 tech show. I'm Ed Strawn. With me, of course, is the real focus of
0:34.9	this and indeed every episode, Gary Anderson, the former Jaguar
0:38.5	Jordan and Stuart F1 technical director with many, many decades of experience in Formula One.
0:46.5	So Gary, we've got the Japanese Grand Prix coming up. It's going to be an interesting one,
0:51.0	isn't it? Zizuka, what a test that's going to be for these cars. Yes, it is indeed. I mean, Zizca's always a fantastic track. Just that fast S is. The whole circuit really, it's not just the fast S's, but, you know, from an engineering point of view and from a driver point of view, it was one of the most challenging of the season, because you just had to get the balance of the car right so that the driver could stay online up through the S's because if you just if you start
1:16.6	wandering each corner every corner just gets tougher so it's really important to get a good front end on
1:22.9	the car but obviously as well you know the circuit's got some long straights on it so you need to have
1:28.5	pretty good efficiency as well and the old Degner corners usually catch somebody out there
1:33.9	as you go underneath the bridge so it's always been challenging I've always enjoyed it and the
1:39.7	Japanese fans are absolutely fantastic I mean they just love the motorsport. They just love
1:44.4	the team that they follow and the driver that they follow. They just support them that you
1:49.4	cannot believe. So yeah, lots of very, very good memories from there. And of course, the engine
1:55.4	manufacturer that they follow is of course Honda's home territory, literally because they own the
2:00.8	Zizuka
2:01.2	circuit, which brings us to our first topic, which is the world of Aston Martin. Now, when Adrian
2:07.2	Ui was appointed team principal back in November, it never seemed to be that permanent,
2:12.4	although the team when they announced it didn't suggest it was interim or anything like that.
	...

Please login to see the full transcript.

Previous episode | Next episode

Disclaimer: The podcast and artwork embedded on this page are from The Race Media Ltd, and are the property of its owner and not affiliated with or endorsed by Tapesearch.

Generated transcripts are the property of The Race Media Ltd and are distributed freely under the Fair Use doctrine. Transcripts generated by Tapesearch are not guaranteed to be accurate.