It's hardly what Fernando Alonso wants to hear, but Aston Martin's trackside officer, Mike Krack, insists that his team and Honda have to learn to work together.

While some had predicted a potential upset along the lines of Brawn, possibly even a third title for Fernando Alonso, last week's test in Bahrain suggests that 2026 - certainly the early stages - could be more akin to the nightmare of 2015.

Both Alonso and teammate Lance Stroll were over 4.5s off the pace, while, according to Formula Data Analysis, the AMR26's top speed was 326 km/h (202.5 mph), compared to the Red Bull's 344 km/h (213.7 mph), even the Audi was marginally quicker.

There have been many explanations for the Aston Martin's disappointing form, the gearbox, Honda, even the oil, but as far as Mike Krack is concerned it's all about his team and Honda learning to work together.

"You know, this is a formula where all the parties need to work very well together," he said. "I think the better you integrate, the quicker you can make progress.

"We are in a situation where we have a new partner that we have to learn how to work with," he continued. "But we have made very good steps already, we speak the same language, we have the same objective.

"The timeline is always there, something that is difficult to say," he added. "I think we take it step by step at the moment. But as I said before, we first need to keep the wheels turning before we think about anything else. Then it's about working through the programmes that we agree together, the development plan that we have together and work it through.

"A partnership or a package that we have, you need to develop it," he insisted. "It's not something that you turn the knob, and it works. There are humans involved, there are different cultures. There are different philosophies.

"But I think, you know, we are on a very good level. We share our issues. We share our priorities. And, you know, there is no real magic in Formula 1. You really have to work hard and work through it all."

As if coached by the same PR firm, Honda's Trackside General Manager and Chief Engineer, Shintaro Orihara said: "Testing over the last three days was really beneficial for us and for our partnership with Aston Martin Aramco Formula One Team as we ran 206 laps overall.

"It was a good opportunity to learn a lot from the power unit package itself and its integration in the chassis," he continued. "New regulations are a big change, not only for the way you drive the car, but also how you charge and deploy your energy over one lap," he explained. "We worked on new ways of how to deal with energy management together with the team and drivers.

"Of course, we would have wanted to run more laps," he admitted, "but we have to remember this is our first official test together with the team, so we all had lots to learn from our new on-track collaboration.

"It is certain that we have more work to do back at our F1 R&D centre in HRC Sakura and here at the track," he said - another masterpiece of understatement. "We know where to improve together with the team, and, believe me, we are pushing.

"For sure, we are playing catch-up on the overall test programme, but we have just acquired a significant amount of data and key learnings from the last week. Looking forward, we have three more days of testing next week, and we will be prepared to make the most out of it."

Meanwhile, as if whistling in the dark, Alonso insists that Adrian Newey hasn't forgotten how to design race winning cars.

Asked if he remains confident in the team, the Spaniard replied: "Yeah... especially on the chassis side.

"The power unit, it's a little bit more difficult," he added, "because we don't have good understanding yet on the regulations and what is needed. But on the chassis side, there is no question mark on that. After thirty-plus years of Adrian dominating the sport, it's not that he will forget everything in one year.

"I don't know where we are now in terms of chassis and grip level, but even if we are not at 100 now, we will be at 100 soon because we will fix any problem on the power unit. We need to give time and understand where we are and, if we are behind, get better as soon as possible."

Incidentally, Formula Data Analysis claims that the top speed a Ferrari powered car reached was 339 km/h, a Mercedes 337 km/h and Audi 328 km/h. All this, of course, with the usual caveats of fuel loads, engine settings, etc.

Interestingly however, while still running in detuned mode in order to safeguard the engine, the top speed of the Aston Martin improved day-by-day, from 303 km/h (188.2 mph)to 318 km/h to 326 km/h (202.5 mph).