Aston Martin’s Chief Technical Officer Enrico Cardile says Honda is able to “push more” than other power unit suppliers as they are only powering one team next season.

Having initially planned to leave Formula 1, the long-time engine supplier reversed its decision but instead of powering Red Bull, the Honda engine will be in the back of the Aston Martin cars next season.

Aston Martin chief gives Honda 2026 engine update

Having been with Mercedes since the team’s inception, 2026 marks a landmark for Aston as it becomes a works team and look to push its way up the grid.

On the chassis front, the Silverstone team have signed Adrian Newey and Enrico Cardile while a deal with Honda was announced in May 2023.

Cardile believes Honda’s sole focus on Aston allows them to “push more” than their power unit supplier competitors.

“On one end, during the development, they’re just trying to satisfy our request,” he said on the Beyond the Grid podcast. “So they don’t need to find any compromise with different requests on one hand.

“On the other hand, I guess they can push a bit more on development, because having to provide power units just to one team, the quantities are lower than having multiple teams and this is allowing them to push more for the development.”

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Honda has powered the Drivers’ Championship-winning car for the past four seasons and it is Aston’s hope that the Japanese company will be amongst the top runners next season.

Cardile, who up until his move to Aston was working with Ferrari engines, said Honda were taking an “aggressive approach” to their development.

“Personally since I joined, I’m focusing my attention on the chassis, so just marginally, I’m seeing what Honda is doing. For what I see, I am surprised by the commitment and the aggressive approach they have.

“They’re very open to collaborating, on satisfying the requests we have [on the] chassis side but my focus is so far is completely, I would say, on the chassis development, rather than the power unit.”

Cardile’s focus on 2026 comes at a time when many have said the new regulations are too limiting but the former Ferrari chief believes there is still room for creativity.

“I had the same feeling I remember in 2021 with the new regulation coming, which compared to the previous one, they seemed to be oversimplified, extremely restrictive,” he recalled. “Then when you start working on them, you find that, okay, they are restrictive but actually you have also room for being creative, for finding new solutions, for getting load out of the development.

“So basically, I’m feeling the same when we started looking at them, okay, it’s a bit sad that they’re over-constrained but then actually working on them, you find the degree of freedom for developing the car.”

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