Honda would have wanted to run more laps with Aston Martin in Bahrain

There are a lot of speculations regarding the new Honda power unit, which caused some issues on Day 1 of the test, which Aston Martin said was due to a data anomaly.

It was then noticed that the AMR26 was running with more open bodywork, suggesting the Honda power unit was overheating due to the tight packaging Adrian Newey designed for his first-ever Aston Martin.

Regardless of the reasons, Aston Martin would've been hoping for a better test in Bahrain, but Honda's Trackside General Manager and Chief Engineer, Shintaro Orihara, took some positives.

He said: "Testing in Bahrain over the last three days was really beneficial for us and for our partnership with Aston Martin Aramco Formula One Team as we ran 206 laps overall.

"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."

Commenting on the low mileage, Orihara added: "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 the overall test programme, but we have just acquired a significant amount of data and key learnings from 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," the Honda engineer concluded.