The team will go into the season-opening Australian Grand Prix without either of its drivers having completed a race simulation in the AMR26.
Day 1 was blighted by gearbox issues, limiting Lance Stroll and Fernando Alonso to 26 and 28 laps apiece.
Day 2 brought battery-related blues that lingered into Day 3 and kept Stroll to just a few kilometres of the Sakhir circuit.
Behind the scenes, the grim reality of the situation has been painted by its team principal Adrian Newey.
According to the BBC, Newey revealed in this week’s F1 commission that the Honda power unit cannot recover energy at the 250kW lower limit, let alone the higher 350kW benchmark.
In the limited laps that Stroll completed, the AMR26 looked like a handful – on one lap missing the Turn 4 apex with a heap of understeer before snapping into oversteer.
Aston Martin has taken a massive gamble on the new regulations, constructing a gearbox in-house as well as taking on Honda in a factory power unit supply agreement.
Despite the wealth in knowledge from Adrian Newey and funding from billionaire businessman Lawrence Stroll, the team has not got on top of the 2026 regulations.
“We have concluded our test programme in Bahrain, and the main challenge has been dealing with some reliability issues that have limited our time on track,” said chief trackside officer Mike Krack.
“This leaves us on the back foot going into the start of the season, because we haven’t been able to complete all of the usual tasks typical of winter testing.”
Honda’s trackside general manager and chief engineer Shintaro Orihara explained the situation in detail.
“Our main target during this week’s test was to build up mileage on the power unit, check engine reliability and gather data,” said Orihara.
“We collected data successfully; however, we didn’t achieve the accumulated mileage that we were targeting.
“On Thursday, we identified an issue in the power unit, and all of us have been uniting efforts to find a solution during our last day of testing.
“Overnight and today, HRC Sakura, the AMR Technology Campus in Silverstone and our crews in Bahrain worked together on a limited run plan, which was jointly agreed considering a shortage of parts.
“It has been an enduring week, but we extend our thanks to the team for their support trackside and everyone working in Japan and the UK remotely.
“Overall, we are not happy with our performance and our reliability at the moment. However, we are all looking for solutions together in Sakura, Milton Keynes and Silverstone.”
Across the six days of testing in Bahrain, Stroll and teammate Fernando Alonso completed 334 laps collectively. That’s more than 250 laps fewer than the next-best team, Cadillac.
“You need reliability and you need the wheels to turn,” said Krack.
“We haven’t yet managed to keep the wheels turning as much as we want. You learn every lap, and every lap you don’t do, you have to play catch up, so it’s not a fantastic start.
“We understand that we are not at the level that others might be, but everything is new.
“We have a new power unit, gearbox, and suspension. We have to focus, look at our problems, and solve them separately.
“We need to be realistic about it, and then we need to catch up. There’s no other way because our competitors are not waiting for us, so we need to do our best to not lose touch.
“We recognise there is a huge amount of work ahead, and everyone involved in this project knows where we need to focus to improve our situation.
“I want to say a big thank you to all my colleagues across the team who have been working day and night over the last two weeks.”
Stroll said it was a “challenging couple of weeks” in Bahrain.
“It’s clear the car isn’t where we want it to be performance-wise, and we know there’s a lot of work ahead in the coming weeks and months,” said Stroll.
“There’s a long season ahead, and we’ll keep pushing flat out to unlock more performance.
“I want to say a big thank you to everyone trackside and back at the AMR Technology Campus for the work that’s gone in so far.
“It’s not where we want to be right now, but I know how determined this team is. We’ll stick together, rise to the challenge and keep working until we get the car where it needs to be.”
There is a brutal sense of irony in all of this. Alonso’s reunion with Honda feels all too familiar after three torturous years with McLaren.
McLaren and Honda eventually split, with the latter joining Red Bull in what turned out to be a successful spell – winning four drivers’ championships with Max Verstappen.
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