Honda seeks cause of Stroll's battery failure in Brazil

Honda says it has yet to identify the root cause of repeated battery problems on Lance Stroll's Aston Martin, after he retired from the Brazilian Grand Prix in Sao Paulo after 30 laps. Stroll was 18th at the time, 28 seconds behind team-mate Fernando Alonso, and the retirement was his 13th of the 2026 season, not counting the Melbourne race, where he was not classified.

Honda trackside general manager and chief engineer Shintaro Orihara said the team had faced battery issues on Stroll's car on consecutive days and was still working out what caused them. He said the data and the battery would be examined, and that finding the root cause could take a few weeks. Orihara added that the team needed to fix the problem before next year to avoid repeating it.

Orihara also said reliability had been better mid-season but had worsened over the last few races. He said it was not yet clear whether the battery failures were linked to mileage or how the power unit was operated.