New Honda engine completes first laps during Aston filming day

Aston Martin’s revival bid gathered fresh momentum on Wednesday as Honda’s new-specification power unit completed its first on-track running during a filming day at the Hungaroring, offering the clearest sign yet that the team’s difficult start to 2026 may finally be giving way to something more promising.

The test came just days after Aston Martin introduced a sweeping 16-part upgrade package in Budapest, a package that immediately delivered encouraging signs.

Fernando Alonso reached Q2 for the first time this season before finishing 13th, while Lance Stroll followed him home in 14th, providing the team with a rare double finish inside touching distance of the points.

After remaining at the Hungaroring for Pirelli tyre testing alongside Alpine and Audi, Aston Martin stayed on for Wednesday’s filming day – and for a milestone moment in its growing partnership with Honda.

A crucial first run before Zandvoort

Honda’s Trackside General Manager and Chief Engineer, Shintaro Orihara, outlined the importance of the session while reflecting on the Hungarian Grand Prix weekend.

“In Hungary, we have been supporting the team with the power unit integration,” he said. “We’ve also been able to collect vital data, which will help us come the next race.

“We will now take the important step of introducing our new-spec power unit in the Netherlands.

“Before then, during Wednesday’s filming day, we will run the new engine in the AMR26 for the first time, before the summer shutdown commences.”

Honda later confirmed that the engine had indeed completed its maiden laps in the AMR26, with attention now shifting to further running ahead of its planned race debut at Zandvoort.

A partnership beginning to find its rhythm

For Aston Martin, the significance of the day stretched beyond a simple shakedown. Chief Trackside Officer Mike Krack revealed that the relationship with Honda has strengthened considerably after a turbulent opening phase.

“It’s easy to point the finger, but we sat together and we said, ‘We are in this together. We need to work hard to get out of it together’,” explained Krack.

“We knew that there would be a lot of difficult moments. We had more than one meeting where we discussed this, and I think it improved the relationship big time – in the garage, in the engineering office, and also in the whole technical collaboration between [Aston Martin’s factory in] Silverstone and [Honda’s headquarters in] Sakura.

“Believe me, it was tough, but it is something that you have to go through, and then you improve from there.

“I think we need to be grown up, we need be professional, in such situations, and we need to get ourselves out of it. If we manage to be in the game again very soon, then I think we can maybe sit together, look back at these last six months, and take all the positives that we learned from it.”

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• Alonso upbeat after revamped AMR26’s first race: ‘A good baseline’

Those words capture the mood surrounding the project: not triumph, but renewed belief. The upgraded AMR26 has already shown its first signs of life, and the successful debut run of Honda’s new engine offers another reason for optimism.

With the summer shutdown approaching, Aston Martin heads into Formula 1’s brief pause carrying something it has rarely possessed in 2026 – a genuine sense that better days may be just around the corner.

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