Categories: F1 News, Reports and Race ResultsHonda

Honda wary of Austria challenge

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Honda motorsport boss Yasuhisa Arai admits the Austrian Grand Prix is likely to be another challenging race for the engine manufacturer.

Despite updating its power unit ahead of the Canadian Grand Prix, Honda struggled with fuel consumption and reliability issues throughout the weekend, with both McLarens eventually retiring from the race.

The Red Bull Ring has similar circuit characteristics in terms of demands on the power unit but with the added challenge of altitude thrown in, and as a result Arai admits it could be another tough race.

"Austria's Red Bull Ring is another power circuit with long straights similar to Canada, which means that it will be tough on the power units," Arai said. "We know that our results in Canada were disappointing, so we are now working hard to analyse, correct and mitigate issues going into Austria.

"The high altitude of the track will also affect the power unit performance, and the vehicle as a whole will require good aerodynamics and downforce. The new ERS system improvements made in Canada have been made to counteract this, and will be adjusted to the new aero and chassis updates planned for Austria. We will push forward to be stronger as a team."

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Andrew Lewin

Andrew first became a fan of Formula 1 during the time when Michael Schumacher and Damon Hill were stepping into the limelight after the era of Alain Prost, Nigel Mansell and Aryton Senna. He's been addicted ever since, and has been writing about the sport now for nearly a quarter of a century for a number of online news sites. He's also written professionally about GP2 (now Formula 2), GP3, IndyCar, World Rally Championship, MotoGP and NASCAR. In his other professional life, Andrew is a freelance writer, social media consultant, web developer/programmer, and digital specialist in the fields of accessibility, usability, IA, online communities and public sector procurement. He worked for many years in magazine production at Bauer Media, and for over a decade he was part of the digital media team at the UK government's communications department. Born and raised in Essex, Andrew currently lives and works in south-west London.