Categories: F1 News, Reports and Race ResultsHonda

Honda preparing for ‘big step’ in Spa

Honda motorsport boss Yasuhisa Arai says the power unit upgrade planned for the Belgian Grand Prix should result in “a big step” forward in terms of outright power.

A major update at the Canadian Grand Prix resulted in a number of reliability issues for Honda which saw both McLarens fail to finish for two consecutive races. That run was halted when Fernando Alonso finished tenth at Silverstone before both cars scored points for the first time this season in Hungary.

Speaking exclusively to F1i, Arai says the updated power unit has the potential to deliver an obvious improvement but Honda has learned from the last upgrade.

“From the power unit side I hope it’s a big step,” Arai said. “We still are confirming that right now, especially from the reliability side. We will increase the output power, but at the same time we have to check the reliability because if the power is going to go that high then maybe some areas are a little bit weak. We have to check.

“Also the chassis side - in order to increase the power we have to change the set-up, especially the traction with the tyres and the gearing. It’s very important in order to be able to increase the power.”

Honda currently has seven tokens left to use on upgrading its power unit, and is expected to spend three of those on the Spa update.

Click here to find out the budgets available to each F1 team during the 2015 season

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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.