Honda goes for one more big upgrade for McLaren

In a bid to reduce the risk of grid penalties for McLaren's drivers, Honda will implement a single but substantial upgrade by the end of the season.

The Japanese manufacturer ramped up its development pace over the course of 2017 as it attempted to improve its partnership with McLaren.

While the efforts were met with progress, it was too little too late for the Woking-based outfit which ultimately decided to part ways with its power unit supplier at the end of the year.

Honda will now forego its incremental step procedure and introduce just a single upgrade in the short term.

"One of the points is we want to minimise the engine upgrades for the rest of the season, but that is because we’d like to get the maximum results within this year," said Honda’s FF1 boss Yusuke Hasegawa.

"Previously we just prioritised the performance improvement because any improvement is continuing for next year, so we didn’t need to hesitate to introduce upgrades.

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"But now we won’t be working together with Stoffel and Fernando next year, that means we want to concentrate on this year’s results for McLaren.

"I prefer to score more points this year, I’d like to contribute to this team, most of all.

"But of course if we can get some huge upgrade, then we don’t need to wait and don’t need to hesitate to take a penalty."

Hasaegawa would not reveal when the major upgrade is likely to be introduced.

"We have another six races left so we may introduce one more engine as a plan," he said.

"That could maybe be in Malaysia, Suzuka or the US.

"From that point of view we will try and avoid the penalty in Suzuka obviously, and the US could be a very good potential circuit for us based on the last years' results.

"Malaysia could be a chance but it’s too soon to say. It will be difficult so I cannot confirm."

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