Honda admit Aston Martin 'playing catch-up' after difficult Bahrain test

Honda trackside general manager and chief engineer Shintaro Orihara has admitted that Aston Martin are "playing catch-up" on their overall testing programme.

It has been a difficult start to the new power-unit regulations for Aston Martin, which has become a works team through its new partnership with Honda.

The British outfit missed the majority of the initial five-day shakedown test in Barcelona, only hitting the circuit towards the end of the penultimate day.

Aston Martin’s pre-season form failed to improve in Bahrain, with both Fernando Alonso and Lance Stroll having been critical of the Silverstone-based team’s current position.

Stroll claimed it was “four seconds” off the leading pace, while Alonso criticised how the new cars feel to drive.

Across the three-day test this week at the Bahrain International Circuit, Aston Martin completed only 203 laps — the fewest of any team by a considerable margin.

"Testing in Bahrain over the last three days was really beneficial for us and for our partnership with Aston Martin as we ran 206 laps overall," said Orihara. "It was a good opportunity to learn a lot from the power unit package itself and its integration in the chassis.

"New regulations are a big change, not only for the way you drive the car, but also how you charge and deploy your energy over one lap. We worked on new ways of how to deal with energy management together with the team and drivers.

"Of course, we would have wanted to run more laps, but we have to remember this is our first official test together with the team, so we all had lots to learn from our new on-track collaboration.

"It is certain that we have more work to do back at our F1 R&D centre in HRC Sakura and here at the track. We know where to improve together with the team and, believe me, we are pushing!

"For sure, we are playing catch-up on overall test programme, but we have just acquired a significant amount of data and key learnings form the last week. Looking forward, we have three more days of testing next week and we will be prepared to make the most out of it."