Honda motorsport boss Yasuhisa Arai has claimed that it is unfair the engine maker is receiving all criticism and has rebuked doubts that the Japanese firm could make enough of a step forward over the next winter to become competitive.
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Soichiro wrote:Thanks for the reply. I understand that, but still the difference between RB and McLaren was very big. RB was in the league of Mercedes while McLaren was nowhere near them both. I would say that aero should have an impact (a big obe) on that difference too.
From watching the times (although I am no expert and is just my opinion) I would say that Mercs and RB still have better aero/chasis. McLaren could be sligthly better than Ferrari and Torro Rosso - others were worse from my opinion. The rest is on Honda to deliver -60 hp would provably do some 'magic' . For starter.
The PU can't push the car fast enough when the wings are placed at an angle to generate max downforce. In Hungry they just didn't have to move the wing angle as far back as they did at other tracks. RedBull are likely running far more power than Honda and able to make better use of their available downforce.
“The settings on both the cars and the power units were solid, so this race was important for us in order to prove their worth.
Still on a very steep learning curve
That´s obvious with the reliability issues they had. This was first race Alonso finished in last four. But at least it looks like they´re moving forward.
I guess they needed to confirm they have adressed main reliability issues before improving perfomance, and this is what this race proved. Now let´s move to next step, improving perfomance for Spa
A quick sum of the video,which i got from Autosport forum.
Given that the programme is written in close partnership with Honda I believe it would have been checked by them before broadcasting.
I found it quite interesting overall. I wish the other engine makers were a tenth as open.
They were very frank about the problems faced by Honda. Essentially the problem is with focal temperature control within the engine. In particular the MGUK temperature during operational use has been far higher than predicted so the performance of the motor degrades substantially. This is a problem that the other makers have not experienced because the MGUK in the Honda is close to the exhaust manifolds and therefore absorbs a lot of radiated heat from them. They showed several changes made over the season including redesigning the oil reservoir that attaches to the front of the engine to improve local airflow to the MGUK and changes made to the seal to prevent coolant leak from the motor. They mentioned that earlier versions of the PU were considerably larger and it took substantial work to reduce the size of the engine.
The programme focuses a lot on Honda culture (which should NOT be mistaken for Japanese culture) and interestingly Arai often imagines how Mr Honda would react if he walked in on the project today which involves a lot of shouting. It talks about how he insisted that his engineers never follow the routes taken by other companies, finding interesting new ways to do things, fail, learn how to overcome failure and then succeed and win. How failure is essential in order to learn how to win. He also describes how if they got senior engineers from other companies the Honda engineers would end up merely supporting them in executing solutions they had learned elsewhere rather than learning how to solve them themselves which rather misses the point of why they are involved in F1.
It also shows the passion of the engineers themselves and the emotions they feel at various points of the season, probably the most important being kuyashii which I can't translate into English but the closest approximate is the feeling after being defeated or failing, a mix of frustration, anger and feeling resolute not to let it happen again.
Last edited by GoranF1 on 29 Jul 2015, 12:51, edited 1 time in total.
"I have no idols. I admire work, dedication & competence."
As a native Japanese speaker I can say that the translation was spot on and it definitely had Honda's stamp of approval. I was quite surprised too at their frankness of their problems. It made me quite happy that at least on the surface, Honda's core culture at Honda Racing has not changed much over the decades. Also good point that Honda's culture is about as opposite as you can get to conventional Japanese business culture.
Kuyashii is the self anger one feels to the point of tears that comes from defeat. It is that feeling that makes or breaks people. If Soichiro Honda's spirit lives on at Honda Racing then they will make this PU work.
“If Honda does not race, there is no Honda.”
“Success represents the 1% of your work which results from the 99% that is called failure.”
Haha you´re right. dont trust Marca, really. The only real fact is that Arai has announced a new and improved PU for this race, using the 7 tokens, I guess. I wish they were 70 instead of 40 because Mercedes will bring an update too and Ferrrari in Monza, which will be a big one.
Haha you´re right. dont trust Marca, really. The only real fact is that Arai has announced a new and improved PU for this race, using the 7 tokens, I guess. I wish they were 70 instead of 40 because Mercedes will bring an update too and Ferrrari in Monza, which will be a big one.
Because there is uncertainty over a possible future investor / partners / sponsors, are also the sponsors who wanted to follow Honda in Formula 1, have been reluctant and kept in the background - supposedly three potent Japanese companies.
They did take a step forward in Hungary, I don't know if they improved by 70bhp but they were certainly a bit faster than the last few races. They're now only .7 seconds/lap off Ferrari instead of 1.4 seconds.
JUST .7 in hungaroring?! i remember you that this was one of the shortest track on the calendar and one of those where pure engine power was not the key to go fast. in a standard track the gap is still much (MUCH) more than 1 sec per lap
They did take a step forward in Hungary, I don't know if they improved by 70bhp but they were certainly a bit faster than the last few races. They're now only .7 seconds/lap off Ferrari instead of 1.4 seconds.
they did make progress but i think .7 is a bit to little,the gap of Ferrari to Merc in Q has been around .6 in the last few races and if Alonso had a decent run in Q2 Hungaroring he would been about 1.8-1.9 behind the Mercs so te gap to Ferrari is still 1+ sec.
the problem though is that Alonso was lapping close to 3 sec off Vettel pace in the first stint....as the race progressed that gap became smaller and after safety car it was less than 1.5 per lap(i think)
there is no doubt tho if Honda menages to get at least 30-40HP soon Mclaren will jump a whole group of teams...Lotus,Sauber,FI,TR figting Redbull and even Williams on some tracks. [-o<
"I have no idols. I admire work, dedication & competence."
I wish Honda the very best but I don't think that the Hungary figures are representative. It was a strange GP weekend where several teams were rather out of the regular pecking order so its hard do make comparisons based on that.
piast9 wrote:I wish Honda the very best but I don't think that the Hungary figures are representative. It was a strange GP weekend where several teams were rather out of the regular pecking order so its hard do make comparisons based on that.
Lap to lap, there are to many variables in a race. I think we would have needed Alonzo to be able to run in Q2 of quali to be able to see where they stand.
If we're being honest. Button not making it into Q2 and Alonzo Just barely(whatever the reason), doesn't really look good. I was hoping for a fight for Q3.
In my opinion the chassis didn't shine (as Red Bull did in Ricardo's hands). We can come up with all kinds of excuses as to why it didn't shine but if we look at the facts, all we really have is more ???? about the chassis.
. For starter.
