Williams should dump Mercedes power in favour of Honda, 1996 world champion Damon Hill has suggested, believing it is the only way the Grove outfit can ever challenge for the championship.
The claim might surprise some, given Mercedes currently have the dominant power unit on the grid, whilst Honda’s is arguably the worst by some distance, but Hill reckons in the long-term, once Honda have resolved their problems, having a different engine to Mercedes will enable Williams to challenge for wins.
“I sort of suggested to Claire [Williams] last year that the problem is they have the same engine as the Mercedes team and that is always going to be a barrier between them winning a championship and Mercedes themselves winning a championship,” Hill told Sky Sports.
“I think as a team wanting to win the outright championship strategically they would be better off with another engine and I think the only other engine you can think of is a Honda.”
The Briton is confident Honda, following its troubled return with McLaren last year, will begin to fight back and eventually emerge a powerful force in F1.
“I would have liked to have seen Williams opt to go with the Honda engine, I think Honda are going to fight back,” he claimed.
“They had an absolutely catastrophic year last year, but they learnt a lot, I could be wrong, but if they make the sort of impression they should do, then for Williams to get ahead of Ferrari and Mercedes they are going to have to have a different engine to the Mercedes team.”
