What Aston Martin's Honda deal reveals about its true F1 mindset

Honda's exit from Formula 1 will only be brief as it gets set to return at full strength with Aston Martin from 2026. F1's evolving engine rules have helped bring Honda back, but Aston's decision to ditch tried-and-tested Mercedes power for the Japanese marque speaks volumes about Lawrence Stroll's ambitions.

Jonathan Noble May 24, 2023, 9:11 AM

When rumours about a potential Formula 1 partnership between Aston Martin and Honda first emerged earlier this year, there seemed plenty of factors that talked against it.

The Silverstone-based squad seemed to be so firmly in bed with Mercedes that a change of course seemed, on the face of it, to be pretty hard to imagine.

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Author Jonathan Noble

Jonathan Noble is Motorsport.com’s Formula 1 editor. Having graduated from University of Sussex Jonathan worked for sports news agency Collings Sports reporting on F1, F3, touring cars and other sports, with articles appearing in The Daily Telegraph, The Independent, Reuters, Autosport and other publications. In 1999 he moved to Haymarket Publishing to become a senior editor at Autosport Special Projects, and one year later he became Autosport’s grand prix editor. In 2015 he moved to Motorsport Network, becoming the F1 editor for Motorsport.com. He is also a member of the Guild of Motoring Writers, and sits on the FIA Media Council.

Jonathan has won multiple awards for journalism - in 1991 he was the winner of the Guild of Motoring Writers’ Sir William Lyons’ Award for young journalists, in 2010 he was awarded the Outstanding Individual accolade for consumer journalism in the Haymarket wards, in 2011 he won Haymarket’s Scoop of the Year, and in 2018 he was awarded a prestigious Medaglia d’Oro at the Lorenzo Bandini Awards for his contribution to F1 journalism.