Alonso: Honda 'maybe ahead of Mercedes' at same point

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Fernando Alonso believes Honda is "maybe ahead of Mercedes" at the same stage of its power unit development and is impressed with its progress.

Honda returned to Formula One a year after the introduction of the V6 turbo power unit regulations, with the deal being announced in 2014. While Mercedes, Ferrari and Renault are all in their third year of racing the current power units, Honda is only in its second year and Alonso believes it could be further ahead than Mercedes was at the same point.

"Apart from punch them I cannot do anything more," Alonso said when asked how hard he is pushing Honda. "I am aware of their hard work and I understand that they are doing their best.

"They are working 24 hours in Sakura, they are bringing all their knowledge from people, but unfortunately in F1 there isn’t a magic button you can touch from one day to the other you can reach a certain level.

"If you can imagine we are in our second year, if you see the power we have, the deployment we have and the reliability we have, I don’t think there have been many teams in this position in their second season, maybe Mercedes and we are maybe ahead of Mercedes in the second year.

"I am impressed with what Honda is doing with the little time they had. The biggest problem was the starting point, we were a bit behind last year."

And Alonso takes confidence from the rapid progress over the past 12 months, with the two McLaren drivers getting a combined 105-place grid penalty for changing engine components at last year's Austrian Grand Prix.

"It has changed a lot I think we are definitely moving forward and in the right direction. Last year the project was not mature enough because the power unit was not ready.

"Everyone remembers here we had 105 positions penalty between Jenson and myself which was a sign we were not ready to compete so we are a little bit behind compared to the other manufacturers, but in terms of organisation and on the chassis-side we are comparable ot the top teams, which is a good sign.

"Now we are in a situation which is much better than last year that makes us more confident than about next year. Last year we needed to solve many problems, now we need solve just one only, which is easier."

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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.