Honda is confident it will be able to deal with any reliability problems it faces with its upgraded power unit at the Belgian Grand Prix, according to Yasuhisa Arai.
McLaren’s engine partner suffered from a number of unforeseen issues after spending two tokens on power unit development at the Canadian Grand Prix earlier this year, and was only able to extract more performance in the last two races as it scored in both Great Britain and Hungary. With another major update planned for Spa-Francorchamps, Arai told F1i he is confident there will not be a repeat.
“We have already fixed things, you know [in Hungary] we had very hot weather but we didn’t have any problems,” Arai said. “We have confidence about the reliability so we are stepping up the power side. Spa, Monza and the next few races are more power circuits.”
With McLaren scoring points with both cars in Hungary - the first time it has managed such a result in 2015 - Arai says it was a welcome boost for the whole team but reserved a special mention for Fernando Alonso and Jenson Button.
“It’s just the middle point of the season and we got points with both drivers at the last race, so we are very, very encouraged - not only on the power unit side, but on the chassis side also. There are many people who work for the Formula One team who are very encouraged, but especially I want to say thank you very much to the two drivers.”
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