'Spec-3' Honda engine upgrade set for Austria

Engine manufacturer Honda will be bringing another upgrade to its power unit for the next Grand Prix in Austria.

Honda chief Yusuke Hasegawa says the long-awaited 'specification 3' unit will make its bow at the Red Bull Ring.

"We will continue our development with our best efforts in order to continue closing the gap," he said.

New engine components almost certainly mean that McLaren drivers Fernando Alonso and Stoffel Vandoorne will suffer another slew of grid place penalties.

The pair stacked up more than seventy such grid demotions in the last Grand Prix in Baku. Despite that, a turbulent race allowed Alonso to finish in ninth place, winning the beleaguered team its first points in 2017.

"Mathematically it's good for the team to have some results," McLaren sporting director Eric Boullier commented after the race. "But I'm not smiling, I'm not excited. It's not the reason why I'm racing. And especially not racing with McLaren.

The latest upgrade will almost certainly prove too little, too late to salvage Honda's relationship with McLaren which appears to have hit the end of the line. The team is rumoured to be close to sealing a deal for Mercedes engines in 2018.

First points for Alonso and McLaren in race 'we should have won'

However, Boullier did raise the prospect that any break with Honda might prove to be only temporary. He suggested that in the meantime, Honda could continue to develop its package next year with Sauber.

"On paper it's a good strategy," Boullier told Sky Sports F1. "If you can run a [different] engine for the time being until Honda is competitive, then why not?

"This is one of the various scenarios we may have considered,"

Boullier is desperate to get a competitive engine for the team next season in order to retain the services of Alonso who is rumoured to being courted by Renault and Mercedes.

"This weekend, Fernando has been sending confusing signals,: former Formula 1 driver turned media pundit Marc Surer told Speed Week on Sunday.

"McLaren was not competitive at Baku and yet he was saying things are going well for him," Surer pointed out. "He also said he would win races in 2018. So what does he know that we do not?

"I have learned over the years that Fernando often implies something with a hidden message. Sometimes he is provoking a situation or being ironic," he added. "Basically, we can only speculate about his situation at the moment."

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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.