At a joint press conference in Suzuka, Honda’s Shintaro Orihara and Aston Martin’s Mike Krack said engineers at Honda’s Sakura facility had made progress on battery reliability and implemented countermeasures, but that substantive power‑unit updates would not be ready for the Japanese Grand Prix. They said they updated energy‑management simulations and reallocated funds toward a longer‑term solution, but the FIA declined their requests for concessions under ADUO rules governing power‑unit changes, so meaningful updates were deferred.

The short‑term push followed two high‑profile retirements in China tied to battery issues: Lance Stroll stopped on lap nine, and most reports placed Fernando Alonso’s retirement around lap 32 (some outlets reported lap 26). Both drivers experienced severe cockpit vibrations and painful steering; on‑board footage showed Alonso lifting his hands, and he reported numbness in his hands and feet. Those symptoms, alongside earlier reliability shortfalls, prompted safety concerns including warnings from Adrian Newey about potential nerve damage.

Honda and Aston Martin said they applied a mix of hardware fixes and driver‑side mitigations, refined telemetry and energy management, and deliberately ran the power units at lower RPM to limit vibration at the cost of some performance. Team officials expressed cautious confidence that these countermeasures would allow both cars to finish at Suzuka and gather data between races, while a permanent hardware fix remains the objective for a later ADUO window, with some reports suggesting it could arrive as soon as the Miami race. The immediate priorities were protecting driver safety and buying time to develop a definitive solution.

Sources