Honda chief Yusuke Hasegawa has revealed that his team have taken a big risk by pursuing an alternative F1 power unit package concept to the one employed over the past two years with little joy, but acknowledges that the decision to go this route is risky.
Hasegawa said in an interview, “The concept is completely different. It’s very high risk, we don’t know a lot of things about that new concept. We know it will give us a performance advantage but the biggest risk is whether we can realise that potential this year.”
Honda, who supply engines to McLaren exclusively, have been well down on the power levels of their rivals Mercedes and Ferrari. Thus drastic measures were taken by the Japanese car giant to address the issues they encountered in the first two years of their return to F1.
“We need to concentrate on the ICE for this year. If we improve the engine itself, which means boosting exhaust gas energy, we need to boost the turbine otherwise we cannot perform at the same level in terms of deployment.”
“We still have to do some tests and there will be some trial and error. I hope we have understood the direction and the elements to focus on.
“But it’s not easy to combine the elements to realise the improvements on the ICE completely,” added Hasegawa.