Categories: F1 News, Reports and Race ResultsHonda

Honda 'maturing' its power unit concept in 2016

Honda motorsport boss Yasuhisa Arai says the engine manufacturer has been "maturing [the] overall concept" of its power unit.

McLaren suffered a disappointing season in 2015 as Honda struggled on its return to F1, with reliability issues in the early part of the season continuing throughout the year. Honda identified the areas which needed addressing but the power unit development regulations meant it was unable to do so until the winter break.

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Arai highlights the compressor as one area of focus during the winter, and says Honda will be focusing on changes made to its ERS during the two pre-season tests.

"From the start of tomorrow’s testing, the second season of McLaren-Honda’s new adventure begins," Arai said. "It was a short winter break, but nonetheless Honda was able to make the most of the off-season in preparation for 2016, strengthening our team and working tirelessly alongside the McLaren and ExxonMobil engineers.

“Learning from last year, we’ve made changes to the compressor and other hardware of the power unit during the break, maturing our overall concept from last year. Our focus will be to test the car’s balance with the new chassis and power unit, and specifically the ERS direction during the eight days of winter testing.

“We won’t know exactly where we stand until we reach the end of the two tests, but we’re looking forward to getting back on track, gathering data, and feeding back the information to our engineers so as to prepare for Melbourne and onwards."

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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.