Honda changing development approach for F1 engine

Honda has changed the way it evaluates developments for its Formula 1 engine, according to its project leader Yusuke Hasegawa.

Yusuke Hasegawa, Senior Managing Officer, Honda

Jonathan Neale, Managing Director, McLaren, Yusuke Hasegawa, Senior Managing Officer, Honda

The Japanese manufacturer has had a frustrating first half to its third season in F1, with poor reliability and a lack of power threatening its future with McLaren.

Last month, Hasegawa said Honda struggled with correlation between the dyno and the track but now says it has changed its approach with less reliance on dyno results to prove a specification.

"We are changing our way of development," he told Motorsport.com. "We're not too much insisting on mono-cylinder [dyno] development.

"We can check factors or elements or many concepts with the mono-cylinder [block] but we now understand we need to check with the V6 to finalise our specification.

"So we are no longer relying too much on the mono-cylinder results. As a reference, the mono cylinder test is important but to find the performance, we need to check the V6 results."

The MGU-H has been a particular problem for Honda this season, with Japanese manufacturer encountering a series of failures.

However, following a reliability update a Silverstone, Hasegawa feels Honda may have finally got on top of the issue.

"The MGU-H failure took a very long time to solve," said Hasegawa. "We had many small issues in the engine - and that area is difficult to understand on the dyno.

"We are about to solve that [MGU-H] issue, we just need to confirm on the circuit.

"But the MGU-H specification we have introduced includes solutions for the problem so I believe it's OK."