Honda Racing Corporation is replacing president Koji Watanabe with executive vice president Keiichi Yasuda on January 1, six months earlier than typical executive changes. Watanabe oversaw Honda's chaotic return to Formula 1 under the 2026 regulations, a comeback that has cratered from the start. Chronic reliability problems marred winter testing and the early season, and performance has remained dismal even after the engines stopped grenading. The rot runs deeper than one executive: Honda officially withdrew at the end of 2021, gutted its F1 program to redeploy engineers elsewhere, then reversed course for 2026—leaving the manufacturer flatfooted when the new rules arrived. Aston Martin discovered the damage late last year, realizing Honda's project bore little resemblance to the engine that powered Red Bull's dominance. Honda calls the swap "planned periodic personnel rotation," but Yasuda inherits a mess that threatens to anchor Aston Martin at the back of the grid for the foreseeable future.
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