Categories: F1 News, Reports and Race ResultsMcLaren

McLaren needs to make chassis progress too - Honda

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Honda motorsport boss Yasuhisa Arai says there is still more to come from McLaren’s chassis as well as the power unit.

Reliability and performance issues with the Honda power unit have been blamed for McLaren’s poor season so far, with racing director Eric Boullier saying “much more” than 50% of the car’s performance is down to the engine. While Arai is unsure how much potential is still to be unlocked, he told F1i during an exclusive interview McLaren also needs to get more out of its updated car.

“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 said. “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.”

Honda is currently weighing up when it will next use tokens to update its power unit, believing it will have limited returns at the Hungarian Grand Prix due to the track having less emphasis on outright power.

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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.