Honda is working to improve the quality of its components to help with reliability ahead of the first race of the season in Australia.
An encouraging start to the second test on Thursday was brought to an abrupt end when Honda discovered a faulty MGU-K seal, with a replacement part needing to be produced. Speaking exclusively to F1i, Honda motorsport chief Yasuhisa Arai explained that the quality of certain parts needs to be improved over the coming weeks.
“It’s a quality issue, not design related,” Arai said. “So our design is part of a very tight package for aerodynamics and it’s a very good design, but some sealing parts have some not so good quality so that’s the seal problem we had. Yesterday we got another part and put it on the car and made it run very well.”
When asked about the new part that was introduced on Friday, Arai said it was not a permanent replacement but just an adjustment to allow the team continue testing.
“It’s not the final part, it’s just a temporary fix. We’re still investigating how we can improve the quality with the target of Australia.”
McLaren's running on Saturday was limited to just 12 laps in the morning session after Button stopped on track when the engine shut down.
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