Honda targets points in Mexico despite 2015 struggles

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Honda is targeting more points in this weekend's Mexican Grand Prix despite struggling in last year's edition of the race.

With the Autodromo Hermanos Rodriguez the highest on the calendar, power unit manufacturers notice a change in performance due to the altitude. With Honda struggling last season, its problems were magnified in Mexico where Fernando Alonso retired on lap one and Jenson Button was nearly 50s adrift of race-winner Nico Rosberg despite a late safety car period.

Despite struggling so much at the venue last season, Honda's head of F1 project Yusuke Hasegawa is targeting points which he says would showcase how much progress the Japanese manufacturer has made over the past 12 months.

“Autódromo Hermanos Rodríguez is located at the high altitude of 2,200m (7,218ft), which means that the oxygen in the air is very lean, and therefore the turbocharger must work extra hard to force air into the power unit," Hasegawa said. "As a result, the quality and the efficiency of the turbo will be the key factor in the Mexican Grand Prix.

“At the same time, this track has a very long straight, so we need to consider the power effect while matching the power unit to the chassis.

"We had a very difficult race here last year, but we would like to maintain the good momentum gained in Austin, and also show our technological progress throughout this season. We are hopeful that we can once again target points in the race.”

McLaren scored with both cars in Austin last weekend, as Alonso finished fifth and Button ninth to secure the team's fourth double-points finish of 2016.

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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.