Honda Power Unit Hardware & Software

[hollus]

I’ll leave the posts stay, as they include some arguments, but pretending to own the truth does not a forum make.
Please remain respectful as well.
Playing pigeon chess will not (is not) acceptable.

Ghost, just above, nailed it.

[hkbruin]

Here is a recent article/interview of HRC President Koji Watanabe on 06.14.2026 from Japan’s Autosport Web:
https://www.as-web.jp/f1/1325833

It will require translating to English but in a nutshell, Watanabe details their current situation at AMR/Honda and goes into why they are on the backfoot. The lack of continuity back in 2022-23 at Sakura when Honda decided to “return” to F1 showed how they essentially performed a hard reset with their research and development.

A small excerpt:

President Watanabe: "It is true that the new regulation was very complicated and difficult, but at the time when the new regulation was introduced, we teamed up with a new team and new fuel and I think it was a pretty high hurdle to return to F1 with new oil. In March 2022, when the 4th term of F1 activities ended and the power unit that was homorized to Red Bull and Alpha Tauri was handed over, HRC engineers from HRC Sakura to Honda Motor Corporation and Honda Technology Research Institute at their headquarters. I went back to the research institute. From there, for about a year until May 2023, when it announced that it would conclude a partnership with Aston Martin, Sakura continued only basic research and element research with a very small number of people. The delay between them was quite big. So I think it will take a little more time to reorganize the system.”

Apologies for any poor web translations.

[PlatinumZealot]

Power Unit driveability problems explained by Honda Cheif Engineer

Grabbed from the webs. It pretty much is what I expected. They just gotta keep working on the combustion.

Orihara:

"One of the challenges is preventing the rear wheels from locking up when the driver downshifts while braking. This requires control from the transmission, and the power unit must correctly deliver the necessary torque so that the engine speed matches the downshift and prevents the wheels from locking up."

"The difficulty lies in the fact that the 2026 model’s power unit will use a method of energy generation called partial regeneration more frequently than before.

"When entering a turn, even with the throttle off, the engine generates nearly maximum power (due to braking from the MGU-K). If the engine torque fluctuates even slightly, the driver will notice the rear end drifting inward during the turn. In Monaco, you have no choice but to drive with a safety margin, so the key is how to stabilize the car and enter the turn with the same engine torque—and that’s what we’re trying to achieve."

"This partial regeneration also occurs during acceleration. The internal combustion engine must generate stable torque to counteract the braking force of the MGU-K; otherwise, the driver cannot safely press the accelerator. The main cause of this lies in the internal combustion engine’s lack of power and its still-immature combustion settings."

"Unstable torque means unstable combustion. The problem was that combustion in our internal combustion engine was unstable, which resulted in inconsistent torque every time. Up until the Miami Grand Prix, we were still looking for a way to fix it, but after the Miami Grand Prix, we found a solution that would improve things, and we’ve been gradually fine-tuning in that direction, so the number of issues we need to resolve has decreased. It has decreased, but we haven’t been able to eliminate them completely yet, and the big difference is that, while staying within this range is acceptable at other circuits, Monaco requires a much higher standard (which has made the problems more evident)."