Formula 1: Honda boss 'worried' about lack of reliability
Last updated on .From the section Formula 1
Honda Formula 1 boss Yusuke Hasegawa has said he is "worried" about the company's lack of reliability in the first pre-season test.
Hasegawa said McLaren's engine supplier still did not know what had caused an engine failure during the test.
He added he could not be confident that the problems would not compromise the start of McLaren-Honda's season.
"The mechanical issue, I don't know enough yet to be confident about that. Of course I worry about that," he said.
Hasegawa, who was talking to Spanish television station Movistar, said that because the cause of the failure was not yet known, Honda could not be sure what specification of engine would be used in the final pre-season test.
The plan was to use a new specification aimed at the first race of the season in Australia on 24-26 March.
The engine failure, on the second day of the test, was one of a series of problems that led Honda to use at least five engines over the course of four days in Spain.
There was an oil tank problem which led to an engine change and restricted Fernando Alonso to just 29 laps on the first day of the test.
A third new engine was fitted overnight before the Spaniard's team-mate, Stoffel Vandoorne, started testing on Tuesday. But it failed after 29 laps and needed to be changed for a fourth engine that day. The Belgian was able to run again later and complete a total of 40 laps.
The Honda ran more reliably on Wednesday and Thursday but the company used at least one further engine during those two days. A spokesman would not confirm the exact number of engines used during the test.
Asked whether the problems had affected Honda's relationship with McLaren, Hasegawa said: "In the tests, of course, this is a stage we need to overcome a lot of trouble. So sometimes we need to argue or we need to have constructive discussion, but I think we are doing a very good job and we have a very good relationship."
Despite the problems, Hasegawa said Honda's ambitions to improve on last year's sixth place in the championship remained.
"We need to gain further steps this year to close on the front-runners," he said.
Honda has fundamentally redesigned its turbo hybrid engine for this season, and is now using a similar architecture to that used by Mercedes so successfully since 2014.
"We have modified the package so the engine is lighter and the centre of gravity lower," he said. "This gives us a big benefit of the behaviour of the car and we change the internal combustion engine to extract more power."
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No problem with seeing McLaren much lower on the grid than before (happened to Williams after they were dominant in the 90s too), but it's sad that they're not even allowed to do much to sort it out.
The Mercs designed their engine in the background years in advanced, so it worked perfectly on track when the time came. You cannot simply redesign an engine and introduce it within a matter of months, and expect to be reliable.
Alonso certainly will not stay beyond one more bad season.
Really feel sorry for the whole of McLaran, I hope they get it sorted out before Australia and we see Alonso fighting at the front again.
At the moment it is such a waste of his talent.
.....well, there's one less team to compete against this year, so you stand a reasonable chance!
He threw away his Ferrari career to rejoin a McLaren team in much worse shape than when he left.
These catastrophic errors of judgement are just swept under the carpet quietly whereas if this was Hamilton he'd be torn to shreds.
Perhaps Ferrari's success and longevity in the sport might have something to do with the $100m bung each year that Bernie agreed for them to get just for turning up (so he could be seen prancing around with a prancing horse)
Red Bull went into the 2104 season with next to no running in the tests due to the new Renault engine and they split the Mercedes in qualifying in Australia. They even went on to win three races that year.
Also no ridiculous token system this year to stop them and others competing.
Keep the faith McLaren fans.
Williams, Force India and Manor hardly been in the mix for the WCC or WDC.
Engine equality does not and never has existed in F1 so Ron was right to go else where.
Red Bull had to ask Ilmor to sort their engines out!
In fairness to Honda, they have redesigned the engine and with no token system they should catch up. They were able to improve under the restrictive token system