HRC’s number one defended his men
“When the contract was signed, we were not aware of their lack of experience. We only realized it in November of last year, when Lawrence, Andy Cowell and I went to Tokyo to discuss the rumors that were starting to suggest that their original power target would not be achieved for the first race. Only then did it emerge that many of the original team members were no longer there“. When they reformed, much of the original group had dissolved to dedicate themselves to solar panels or other things. Of that group, I would say, only 30% remained. The remaining 70% is actually new to Formula 1“. Thus Adrian Newey on the eve of the Australian GP had highlighted what the structural problems were behind the lack of performance of the Honda power unit.
Read more Haas always in ninth position, Ocon: «There’s room for improvement for tomorrow»
Koji Watanabe, Honda HRC’s number one, wanted to emphasize in a press conference that Adrian Newey can rest assured and that the rotation of engineers at Honda among the different branches of technology development is normal: “Our policy is to regularly rotate motorsport engineers by assigning them to mass production or more advanced technologies such as jets, eVTOLs (electric vertical takeoff and landing aircraft), hydrology or similar. Rebuilding the engine department organization took time, I believe the concerns expressed by Newey were these, but now we have sufficient organizational structure and talent”.
Read more Albon: “The P8 goes beyond our potential, right direction”
Watanabe did not commit on the timeline regarding the growth of the Honda power unit in terms of performance: “We have a recovery plan together with Aston Martin, but we cannot reveal it today. Right now we are focusing on how to improve the situation related to vibrations, mainly the damage generated to the battery, but for Suzuka we also improved energy management to achieve better driving performance”.
Read more Gasly: “Qualifying will be a tight battle: only two tenths between 7th and 15th position”
