Honda hands its F1 engine to its software chief after three points
A control-systems engineer now leads the Honda engine Alonso called very bad
Honda Racing Corporation will replace Tetsushi Kakuda, the leader of its Formula 1 power unit programme, with his deputy Yoichiro Fukao on 1 October 2026. Fukao runs Honda's software division. The announcement came on Monday morning, the day after Fernando Alonso finished the Spanish Grand Prix two laps down in 17th and said the engine had been very bad and the boost control difficult.
Yoichiro Fukao joined Honda in 2002 to write engine control code
Honda calls the change a planned transition, and in the same statement says it is meant to accelerate power unit development. Fukao joined Honda in 2002 on engine and gearbox control systems, moved to MotoGP between 2009 and 2011, spent three years on hybrid systems, and became deputy leader of the F1 project in 2017 and again in 2022 when Honda decided to return. Kakuda has led the 2026 engine from its first drawing, and Honda has not said where he goes next.
Aston Martin has 3 points after Madrid, and only Cadillac has fewer
Aston Martin sits tenth of eleven teams with three points, all of them scored by Alonso across two races, while Lance Stroll has none. Mercedes leads on 503, Williams is ninth on 11 and newcomer Cadillac is last on zero. In Madrid, Stroll retired with a brake problem and Alonso reached the flag two laps behind winner Kimi Antonelli on a circuit built around long straights. Mike Krack, Aston Martin's chief trackside officer, said the same weekend that chassis progress is always quicker than power unit progress.
Honda took one of its two ADUO upgrades and left the other on the table
The FIA's ADUO catch-up scheme measured Honda more than 4 percent behind Red Bull Ford's benchmark engine after the Canadian Grand Prix, which entitled it to two upgrades in 2026 and two more in 2027. Honda used one, introduced at Zandvoort at the end of August, and chief engineer Shintaro Orihara said in June there would be no second step this year. The FIA had already rewritten the scheme in May, adding a bracket for manufacturers 10 percent or more adrift, with 230 extra dyno hours per period and an $8 million cost cap allowance for 2026 only. The FIA has since admitted the mechanism has weaknesses, and FIA president Mohammed Ben Sulayem met Lawrence Stroll in Madrid to discuss what more could be done for Honda.
The 2027 rules move 50 kW from the battery to the combustion engine
From 2027 the combustion engine's fuel flow rises 5 percent, taking it from 400 kW to 420 kW, while maximum electric deployment falls from 350 kW to 300 kW and the harvesting limit rises from 250 kW to 375 kW. In 2028 the engine goes to 450 kW. Honda has run two separate engineering groups at its Sakura plant since spring, one on the 2026 upgrade and one on the 2027 unit, and Fukao inherits both. Ferrari's second ADUO engine at Monza did not close its gap to Mercedes either, which is the context for any promise that a change of leader will.
Honda replaced Yasuhisa Arai in 2016 and Yusuke Hasegawa in 2017
This is the third time Honda has changed its F1 project leader after a difficult season. McLaren-Honda scored 27 points in 2015 and finished ninth of ten teams; Yasuhisa Arai was replaced by Yusuke Hasegawa in February 2016. Hasegawa was moved aside in December 2017 after the McLaren split. The 2026 programme is Honda's second full works return, this time with Aston Martin and an Adrian Newey car, and the driver who matters most to that partnership has been the least specific about staying. Asked in Madrid when news on his future would come, Alonso said not soon, and that it depends on whether the 2027 cars are more enjoyable to drive.
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Honda has changed the man at the top of its F1 engine twice before, and both times it was one bad season into a new partnership. What is different in 2026 is the CV of the successor. Fukao's career is control systems, hybrid software and energy management, and the complaint from the cockpit on Sunday was boost control rather than a bare lack of power. Honda is telling the paddock which half of its problem it believes it can fix in six months, and it is the half written in code.
The awkward part is the calendar. From the first race of 2027 the combustion engine counts for 420 kW and the battery for 300 kW, so the part of the package Fukao does not come from gains weight just as he takes charge. The first ADUO measurement of 2027 comes after round five if the FIA keeps its windows. If Honda's engine is still more than 4 percent off the benchmark at that point, the October reshuffle will have addressed driveability and left the deficit exactly where Kakuda found it, and Alonso will have his answer without needing to give one.
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