Honda targets 'similar competitiveness' in Silverstone

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Honda is targeting a similar level of competitiveness as it showed in Austria in the upcoming races, starting with the British Grand Prix.

Jenson Button took advantage of mixed conditions to finish fifth in qualifying, which resulted in third place on the grid after penalties for Nico Rosberg and Sebastian Vettel. Button then ran competitively throughout the race to finish sixth, with Honda saying the result showed the full benefit of its recent turbo upgrade.

Honda's head of F1 project Yusuke Hasegawa believes a move away from power-sensitive circuits over the coming weeks should help McLaren maintain that level.

"I think we can show a similar competitiveness," Hasegawa said when asked if the upcoming tracks will lead to better performances. "I hope so, still I can’t prove it but it’s not such as Canada or Azerbaijan.

“[Austria] result encouraged us very much. I think we now know our performance level at the normal circuit, which is very good.”

And Hasegawa says Honda could introduce upgrades for the power unit as early as this weekend at Silverstone if he feels there are big enough gains to be had by spending tokens on new developments.

"I don’t wait, so as soon as they are ready we will introduce them, even in Silverstone. But I haven’t got the information yet so I need to check that we can do that.

“It could be next weekend! But actually every race I am expecting to introduce a new update.

“The final decision will be made by me, but with the preparation in Sakura.”

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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.