Steiner blasts Aston Martin and Honda slump

Guenther Steiner has delivered a scathing verdict on Aston Martin’s 2026 form, calling the team’s current level “simply unacceptable” and arguing that both the car and Honda’s engine package have fallen well short of Formula 1 standards.

Speaking on the Red Flags podcast, the former Haas team principal said Aston Martin’s struggles have become so severe that they make newcomer Cadillac “look good” by comparison. He pointed to Cadillac finishing three laps down at the end of the race, yet still appearing stronger than Aston Martin. “What Aston Martin is doing now is, in my opinion, simply unacceptable,” Steiner said. “It no longer meets the standards of Formula 1.”

His criticism was rooted in Aston Martin’s recent on-track performance. The summaries describe the AMR26 as the slowest car in both Monaco and Barcelona, with the team around one second slower than Cadillac’s MAC-26 in Spain. In Barcelona, Aston Martin completed only 46 laps between its two cars and came away with another scoreless weekend.

Steiner argued the problem is not confined to the chassis. He also targeted Honda’s 2026 power unit, saying it is trailing Mercedes, “especially in the combustion engine,” with a power deficit said to be close to 10%. He added that while vibration issues appear to have eased, reliability still has not been fully solved.

That makes the shortfall more striking given the scale of Aston Martin’s project. Steiner said Lawrence Stroll cannot be accused of a lack of commitment, describing him as one of the few people willing to invest so much of his own money in Formula 1. At the same time, the paddock view outlined in the source material is that Aston Martin has all the ingredients to succeed, which only sharpens the contrast with its current results.

Steiner said Honda’s ADUO support will be important, but he does not believe that alone explains the scale of the recovery required. “Honda need more than ADUO,” he said, adding that the help “will certainly” benefit the manufacturer because “if they stay where they are now, they will have to go to Formula 2.”

He framed Aston Martin’s position in similarly brutal terms, arguing that if Formula 1 had a relegation system, the Silverstone team would be in danger of it. For a project built on major investment and high expectations, Steiner’s warning was less about one bad weekend than a start to 2026 that is raising questions about whether Aston Martin and Honda can quickly recover enough to become competitive at all.