Categories: F1 News, Reports and Race ResultsMcLaren

Honda admits power unit ‘not mature’

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Honda motorsport chief Yasuhisa Arai says the new power unit in the McLaren is “not mature” at this stage of testing.

While Mercedes, Ferrari and Renault have all had a year’s experience with the current power units, Honda is working with its first version of the V6 turbo this season. Speaking during an exclusive interview with F1i, Arai concedes the level of maturity is something that Honda needs to try and increase quickly.

Asked what he wants to improve regarding the power unit, Arai replied: “It’s not mature right now.

“We have to put in the effort in less than three weeks so we have to catch up in terms of maturity for the actual race.”

However, Arai is very confident in the layout of the power unit having been able to work with just one team during development.

“We have a good relationship with the way we work with McLaren. It’s a very tiny layout which was very difficult but we achieved it. That’s one very good area of competitiveness we have.”

Exclusive interview with Honda's Yasuhisa Arai

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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.