Amidst talk of McLaren seeking a new engine partner, Honda insists it remains 100% committed to F1 and the Woking team

In the wake of a clear improvement in 2016, thereby putting the nightmare of 2015 behind it, much was expected this year, possibly a challenge to Williams and Force India at the front of the midfield pack.

However, a nightmare pre-season test has seen Honda take a major step backwards, and facing a possible repeat of 2015 McLaren is being linked with Mercedes as the Woking team seeks to stop the rot.

However, despite the concerns, Honda boss Yusuke Hasegawa insists that his company remains 100% committed to McLaren and the sport.

"Of course the situation we find ourselves in is not what we hoped for when we returned to Formula 1," he told Motorsport.com, "but we are still 100 percent committed to our future in the sport and our relationship with McLaren.

"We believe in this partnership, as does McLaren," he continued, "and in order to move forward it is important for us to work as one team and overcome the situation together. The priority is to maintain honest and open communication, and to continue strengthening all relationships between Honda and McLaren despite the difficulties we are facing."

While Honda expected teething problems having built an all-new engine for this season, the various issues that arose in testing - including an oil tank that was too small - caught the Japanese manufacturer off-guard.

Nonetheless, Hasegawa insists that the issues are in the process of being resolved and already the Japanese manufacturer is looking at ways to increase power.

"Obviously the problems we had in Barcelona limited our track time and put added pressure on our pre-season preparations," he said, "however, we were still able to generate a huge amount of useful data, as did McLaren.

"Also, we were not dealing with lots of different problems, despite how it looked from the outside," he added. "Already while in Barcelona we were able to introduce some countermeasures and we proved the effectiveness of these during test two.

"In terms of performance, there is room for improvement with mapping before Melbourne in order to have better driveability. And at the same time we will continue to work on our development to generate more power from the PU."

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READERS COMMENTS

1. Posted by SideGlance, 18/03/2017 3:51

"it simply boggles the mind how honda, a very good engineering company can not be equal to or exceeding in its ability to test and prove an engine like renault or even mercedes, just do not see how their mockups can not rid them of most/all of these issues - boggles the mind.

surely there can be test setups that do all but the G loads an f1 can will encounter, surely a 'too small oil' tank - wtf !!

Honda are your doing this on the cheap or just all of this last minute ? that engine should have been running for 6 mos or more, and rigorously vibrated, twisted, assembled and re-assembled and heat tested and revved beyond the redline and every other stress, shameful Honda shameful !!

its called engineering honda !!

ps: the Indycars are using v-6 turbos aren't they, no knowledge from that effort either ??

Sad Honda."

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2. Posted by mickl, 18/03/2017 1:24

"Have they bought a controlling stake in a duct tape manufacturer to make sure they have enough supply to stop the engines falling apart?"

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3. Posted by Ro, 17/03/2017 15:47

"How embarassing for Honda. I truly hope they come good , for the benefit of F1. "

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Honda remains 100% committed

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