Aston Martin's major 2026 Japan F1 milestone 'not a cause for celebration'

Aston Martin's Mike Krack stressed that getting one car to the finish of the Formula 1 Japanese Grand Prix for the first time in 2026 is nothing to celebrate.

The team had experienced four retirements over the first two events in Australia and China, having gone into the weekends knowing that such a scenario was inevitable due to persistent reliability issues with the Honda power unit.

At Suzuka, Lance Stroll logged another non-finish, but on Honda’s home ground Fernando Alonso made it home in 19th place.

Asked if he was proud of that achievement in the light of the recent struggles, Krack was keen to downplay it.

“The mood in the team is not celebration, that is clear,” he said.

“But when you look back in Melbourne, we discussed doing six laps. In Shanghai we managed to do the sessions, but we had in-between sessions a lot of work to be able to do all the sessions. This was not the case here.

“So the cars could be prepared normally between the sessions, and our objective, it is a modest objective, clearly, was to finish a race with both cars. We managed with one. So it's one small step on the list with many, many, many small steps to be done.”

However he agreed that doing a race distance was a positive for the camp after the problems experienced in recent weeks.

“As a team you cannot destroy yourself,” he said.

“We are in a difficult situation, and you need to take the positives from the last three months. We went to Barcelona at the end of January, and since then, we have not done many laps.

“We have now managed to finish races, which in F1 it should be the norm. It should not be something that you have to celebrate. But we have to acknowledge that that is the situation we are in, and then we have to accept it and work our ourselves out of it.

“I think credit to everyone trackside, Sakura and also in Silverstone, how we persisted in getting these initial steps done.”

Aston needs "major steps" to improve car performance

The reliability issues aside the team also faces a major challenge in addressing performance. Both Astons qualified behind the Cadillacs in Japan, although in the race Alonso did at least finish ahead of Valtteri Bottas.

“Unfortunately, as soon as you fix your reliability issues, everybody's just focusing on performance,” Krack conceded. “And looking at that, we have seen that we have some major steps to take, not small steps that we have now done with reliability.

“There are major steps to take, and we have to use the break now to make the first step. But there is a big mountain to climb.

“The mood in the camp is nobody's celebrating. But I think for the more the modest target that we have set ourselves, we have achieved a part of it.”

While much of the focus from the outside has been on Honda Krack admits that the team has much work to do on the AMR26.

“We need to be honest that the performance deficit that we have, we have our part in that,” he said.

“We are not great in high speed corners. We are not on the weight limit. So there is stuff that we have to work on hard going forward. And if we can solve this, we will make steps forward at the same time.

“We know that Honda does not want to be where they are, so they are pushing as well, as much as they can. So I think both of us, we have a lot of work ahead, and I think we need to use these five weeks to make a step.”