Honda motorsport boss Yasuhisa Arai tells F1i this year's ambitious targets remain in place, but it's a two-way street with McLaren to achieve success quickly
At the first in-season test in Barcelona, Honda was making consistent strides and looking forward to a Monaco Grand Prix where it knew it had a chance of its first points of the season.
Motorsport boss Yasuhisa Arai was well aware of the task ahead but keen to maintain the power unit manufacturer’s optimistic goals of being able to challenge for podiums at some stage later in the season.
“Maybe in Monaco or Canada we will have a much better chance of getting points, and then to achieve a podium in the middle of the season – we hope,” Arai said at the time.
He was right to be confident ahead of Monaco, as Jenson Button finished eighth to score four points after a much more competitive weekend. However, Canada was a disaster. Two tokens were spent to improve performance and reliability, but the car was uncompetitive and extremely fragile as Honda appeared to take one step forward and two back.
Austria saw the problems from Canada extrapolated, with power unit penalties resulting in a drop of 25 grid positions for each driver, and neither made it beyond the opening laps of the race. But the British Grand Prix saw signs of recovery, with improved reliability as Fernando Alonso finished tenth on a circuit which was a major test of the power unit.
Sitting down with F1i after the race at Silverstone, Arai admitted he is well aware of the performance deficit which remains but he has only pushed back the earlier targets by a few races.
Asked if he retains the aim of challenging for a podium this season, Arai replied: “Yes. I hope so and I wish for it. I think it’s a realistic target.
“I think our power unit concept is good enough to get a podium. Whether it will be soon or we will need more time, I don’t know, but our target has not changed. I think our direction is a very good direction and by changing some areas relating to the combustion we can get some more power.”
There are seconds rather than tenths still to be unlocked from the power unit
In terms of lap time, McLaren racing director Eric Boullier says there are seconds rather than tenths still to be unlocked from the power unit, but patience is starting to run out for those steps forward to be seen on track.
“I keep telling Arai-san every day, we need to be successful as soon as possible,” Boullier said at Silverstone. “Like any partnership in the world we are not going to tell you what we are telling each other behind the scenes. We have to face the world together as one team, but the pain is real. There is nothing we can hide, you are asking the right questions, everything you ask has already been raised 100 times.
“We put pressure on Honda and they put pressure on us - us maybe more than them so far - because we need to have more performance and from the package of the car and engine today, more than 50% - much more - will come from the power unit. Everybody knows this, they know this, we know this, so this is where we put pressure if we want to catch up.”
Arai was even asked at Silverstone if he still feels he is the right man to lead the Honda project, to which he replied: “Yes.”
F1 rarely follows the hire-and-fire approach of football, and despite its eagerness to see quicker progress from Honda, even McLaren is unlikely to be pushing for such a change at the top. Power units are so complex their development has to be meticulously managed, but removing the head of a manufacturer’s motorsport arm is never going to result in an instant gain of 50 horsepower.
As Boullier says, McLaren might be putting more pressure on Honda than the other way round, but Arai’s optimism for the future is unerring and based on improvement from both partners simultaneously.
“It’s very difficult to say [how much potential is in the power unit], but I think not only the power unit side but also the chassis side applied a new aero kit,” Arai told F1i. “The aero kit is very difficult to set up because there are many parameters, so we need more time to get more performance race-by-race.
“I think after a few races the chassis side and aero side is getting better, it will dramatically change, I hope.”
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