Honda still seeking answers to MGU-H failures

Honda is struggling to get on top of the reliability issues affecting the MGU-H component of its troubled power unit.

The MGU-H is connected directly to the engine's turbocharger and converts excess heat from the car's exhaust into electrical power.

Honda F1 boss Yusuke Hasegawa revealed last weekend that the component's weakness appears to be centered around bearing rotation, forcing Honda to change the MGU-H every two races as a matter of precaution, which in turn entails grid penalties.

Oddly, as frail as the MGU-H has been, no major reliability issues have shown up during dyno tests, a head-scratching discrepancy for Honda's engineers.

"We need to improve this situation," Hasegawa told Racer.com.

"Although we had the result we can run on dyno, on circuit, we had many issues. So we need to modify. It's just a modification. It's already testing.

"It's going in the right direction. We're supposed to bring some different modifications for Canada, but we don't want to change, we want to keep [the current MGU-H] unless we have a problem.

"Still it is not targeted mileage."

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As difficult as its season has been up to now, McLaren-Honda take solace in the fact that the team's MCL32 has demonstrated some impressive speed lately, when everything holds together.

"It's reasonably good. Unless we didn't get any penalty, definitely we had a chance to get a point or maybe higher," added Hasegawa.

"I think we could have got points with both cars. It's very frustrating. The penalty was everything, on both cars, especially Jenson. We're very disappointed to give him the grid penalty."

Honda is also hoping to introduce a major performance update linked with its ICE in Canada next week, but time may run out before the step forward's reliability is validated.

"I don't give up and we are trying very hard  but until Thursday , I can't decide," said Hasegawa.

"Maybe we stick with the next step of the engine, even if the next step up is very small, or can we try another step up in performance? It's very tight to introduce a big update for Canada.

"The ICE is the biggest area we need to improve."

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