Lawrence Stroll 'must be climbing the walls' as Aston Martin's Honda crisis deepens

Aston Martin F1 owner Lawrence Stroll "must be climbing the walls" over the team's Honda crisis according to top insider Antonio Lobato.

The team in green have lurched from one nightmare to another during a traumatic 2026 season, despite recent chassis improvements there is one major issue they are powerless to solve.

The upgrades brought by design genius and team principal Adrian Newey have allowed Fernando Alonso to even score points in some recent races - notably a brilliant P8 at the Bahrain Grand Prix in Malaysia.

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High hopes fall flat for Aston Martin in Singapore

On the back of that improved showing in Sepang, there was considerable optimism heading to Singapore last weekend, but the team's much-maligned Honda power unit had other ideas.

Alonso ended up finishing a dispirited P16, having at one stage described his engine as "ridiculous" on team radio. And not in a good way.

That power unit may no longer give off the vibrations that risked permanent nerve damage for Alonso and team-mate Lance Stroll early in the season. But reliability issues remain and the lack of power is killing Aston Martin - only pointless rookie team Cadillac was slower at Marina Bay.

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'The problem right now is in Japan' - Lobato

After the race came rumours and reports - with no official confirmation - that billionaire owner Stroll was next heading straight to Honda's Sakura factory.

DAZN insider Lobato, in the past a long-time confidant of Alonso, responded to those reports when speaking to Spanish outlet SoyMotor.

He began: "Wouldn’t surprise me at all, because I insist that the solution has to be in Japan. And the problem right now is in Japan. And I think there’s a lot of tension right now, and, and, look, we don’t see anything, but there must be a lot of tension and a lot of pressure right now."

'He must be absolutely climbing the walls'

Lobato took a peek into the mind of the 67-year-old Canadian businessman, and spoke about the levels of frustration Stroll must be experiencing.

"I insist, Lawrence Stroll didn’t build the business empire he has by being a little lamb. And right now, this situation must be driving him mad.

"I mean, he must be absolutely climbing the walls, saying, 'Right, I’m going to Japan and I’m going to grab all the Japanese guys by the lapels until they make me an engine that has some go, that actually works, because this is unacceptable', right?

"And that problem is starting to wear away at (to try) the patience of one side and the other, and it’s starting to wear away at Fernando’s patience."

Alonso, Orihara and one major contradiction

The fallout from Singapore included Alonso and Honda engineer Shintaro Orihara appearing to contradict each other when it came to engine changes for Sunday's race. Alonso said the turbo on his engine was broken and it needed to be changed, Orihara said it was not broken, and it was changed because Alonso asked.

Lobato continued: "I’ve also seen some comments from Orihara, Orihara, um… sort of blaming Fernando and saying that Fernando had complained about the turbo in Malaysia and that they’d changed it because the turbo was fine.

"Honda, which has already taken quite a beating throughout the year, deservedly so, uh, reached a point where they don’t want to take any more hits. And he says, okay, if you agree to changing a component of the engine, it’s like saying, uh, that it’s broken.

"So it’s like, we’ve got an engine that has no power and, on top of that, very poor reliability, so it has to be changed."

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Written by

Graham Shaw - Consultant Editor

Digital sports leader with 30 years of senior level experience running global brands. Built sportinglife.com to be a behemoth in the UK as well as being in charge of the Planet Sport network of sites including planetf1.com, football365.com, teamtalk.com and planetrugby.com. Then grew goal.com to be the world's biggest soccer website in 18 languages and 37 territories. Was GM of Portals for Perform Group (now DAZN) with overall responsibility for sportingnews.com, spox.de and voetbalzone.nl.

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