Honda’s head of Formula 1 Yusuke Hasegawa believes the reliability problems that hampered McLaren in pre-season testing can be fixed in time for the first race in Melbourne.
After a complete redesign of the V6 power unit, it was felt 2017 could be the year McLaren-Honda could make a move into being front running contenders once more.
Despite the constant issues with reliability, performance levels are also not what Honda had been expecting.
As quoted by RACER, Hasegawa said: “The biggest disappointment point is our performance level, especially the power performance level is not competitive.”
“The reliability issues I think we can solve before Melbourne. At least the problems we have had, we applied some countermeasures for those and it should be all right.
“But in just two weeks it is very difficult to squeeze more power and performance.
“So from the point of view that we are thinking the concept is a very good direction, in a few grand prix’ we may introduce some more updates to get some more power.”
Over the course of pre-season testing, McLaren-Honda only managed 425 laps, when compared to the Mercedes who managed 1096 laps, it is clear how far Honda are on the back foot.
Despite these issues, Hasegawa feels that previous experiences will help them in their quest to solve the problems that consistently hold them back.
He added: “Although we didn’t have the same issues on the dyno, in general the issues are not brand new to us in each area.
“We have some experience and we have some countermeasures so I think we can react to that.”
“But just being reliable doesn’t make the driver happy!”
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