Categories: F1 News, Reports and Race ResultsMcLaren

Honda 'not satisfied' with MP4-30 pace

Honda motorsport boss Yasuhisa Arai says he is "not satisfied" with McLaren's performance during qualifying for the Australian Grand Prix.

The fastest McLaren time in qualifying was over five seconds slower than Lewis Hamilton's pole position time, with Jenson Button and Kevin Magnussen both set to start from the back row on Sunday. Arai says he was prepared for a difficult start to the season but was surprised by how slow McLaren was.

"We are trying our best, but I am not satisfied with today," Arai said.

And Arai says Honda has opted to run its engine in a "very conservative" manner following a lack of mileage in pre-season testing.

"You may remember we announced our return to Formula One in May, 2013, less than two years ago. We've done a lot of hard work, and finally we are in Melbourne.

"In Barcelona I expected a good place for us in Australia, but unfortunately we don't have the know-how and experience about running in high temperatures.

"We cannot lose the engine in the first race, so our data set is very conservative for the weekend, so that's the reason why we are down on power with the MGU-K and the engine itself. That's the reason why."

Click here for Saturday's gallery from the Australian Grand Prix

Keep up to date with all the F1 news via Facebook and Twitter

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.