Gary Anderson: Newey's forthright criticism risks alienating Honda

The full extent of Aston Martin's Formula 1 problems were revealed during the Australian Grand Prix weekend, to the point where Lance Stroll and Fernando Alonso managing a combined total of 64 laps between them felt like a win!

I was surprised not only by how bad things are, but also how Adrian Newey is dealing with those problems in public.

I'll get onto the Honda troubles shortly, but in his role as team principal Newey had to face the music in the F1 media to explain what was happening.

As I said in my recent column drawing on my experiences of working with Honda, you can get a rapid and very successful response out of them once they recognise a problem.

However, that was all done behind closed doors and while there's nothing wrong with talking about the fact engine vibrations were damaging the batteries, Honda really doesn't like anyone being disrespectful in public.

Newey stating that Honda wasn't clear about the state of its F1 department when the deal for engines was done won't have pleased anyone at Sakura.

With his double role, Newey needs to be very careful and open about which hat he is wearing when he does these media sessions. His questions and answers will and should be very different. Team principals can get into the politics of any situation, but as technical director it has to be all about engineering and facts.

I spoke of my famous diplomatic skills being part of how we got a reaction from Honda with Jordan back in 1998, but that was all done in private and I wasn't hiding the fact that we also had problems.

As team principal as well as managing technical partner, Newey has to have the political side of the game in mind - and while I'm sure everything he said was correct as he saw it, the big question is will that approach get the best out of Honda?

Only time will tell on that, but it's not the way my experience suggests he should have played it.

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Looking back in time when Red Bull was in a partnership with Renault, both Christian Horner and Newey were never shy about throwing Renault under the bus when any problems cropped up on the Renault side, so I suppose you could say 'a leopard never changes its spots'.

If you get into a finger-pointing session then you need to accept it goes two ways, which simply creates a distrust and lack of confidence on both sides - and when that starts it's like a snowball rolling down a hill: it's very difficult to stop.

What we do know is that it will be a long road back for the Aston Martin-Honda team. Just taking the vibration problems from the internal combustion engine that Aston Martin suggests have been affecting the battery, we all know that Adrian is a stickler for compact packaging. Yes, over the years it has been beneficial to the performance of the cars he has overseen the design of, but sometimes you can push the limits too far.

If, for example, the recess in the chassis for that battery pack is just that little bit too small to allow for any form of anti-vibration mountings for the battery pack, then solving this problem completely will not be easy. The initial problems seem to have been eased, but not eliminated, and that will take time.

I suppose we could say that these vibration problems should have been recognised on the dyno. Honda admitted to seeing some vibrations in such testing, but not anywhere near the level of severity experienced when the real car ran.

The mounting of the ICE on a dyno is a very different environment to the ICE being mounted on the back of a carbonfibre chassis, which is the component that houses the battery pack.

The stiffness of the chassis will also have an influence on vibration and its frequency as it is transferred through the chassis.

We also hear that the drivers have been suffering from these vibrations, with Adrian even suggesting that they could suffer permanent nerve damage. I'm pretty sure he was just scaremongering with these comments.

No doubt the potential of what damage these vibrations could cause to the human body can be very quickly identified. Frequency and amplitude will excite a mass and the human body is made of various components, which all have an individual mass.

I'm sure there are many medical papers written about how any individual body component would be excited by these vibrations, and if they are at a level that is unsafe then they need to leave the car in the garage.

Newey also suggested that the engine is down on power, and that's a completely different and more difficult problem.

We're expecting Honda to get some breaks under the additional development and upgrade opportunities (ADUO) rules that allow changes to the V6 if you're 2% or more off based on analysis of each of the first three six-races blocks of the season.

But even if you are allowed more dyno time and extra cost-cap spending to introduce upgrades, you still have to come up with them, design, research, develop and manufacture them before they see the light of day at a circuit.

On top of all that, I'm not sure that when Aston Martin was running I saw a car that was good to drive. Alonso will wring a car's neck any time he has the chance, but Stroll needs a bit more confidence in what is underneath him. Just looking at the limited laps that Stroll did over the Melbourne weekend, he never really gave off that impression.

It also looks like the car's tendency to lock front wheels, which everyone is suffering from, is just that bit worse than others.

Yes, Aston Martin lacks track time, but with the sophisticated simulation tools these teams have back at base this is a problem that it should be able to be identified in advance.

We have only had one race, but already 2026 seems to be a write-off - a year of starting the recovery. Aston Martin needs to lower its expectations from potential podium positions to points finishes.

Simply having a race from lights out to the chequered flag without problems, and on the odd occasion scoring a few points, would be a bonus. Getting to that level from where the project is now could also be classed as a miracle.

I have always said that if I was ever offered combining two positions as demanding as technical director and team principal that it would take me about two seconds to say 'no thanks. I will stick to what I know best'.

I said this when Mattia Binotto effectively held both roles at Ferrari back in 2019 and we all know what happened there in the end. I will say the same now. I have a great deal of respect for Adrian Newey as a technical boffin, but he might just have taken on too much in this double role.