Honda have confirmed they are working on a new power unit for partner McLaren as it bids to rescue its season and close the performance gap to its rivals.
Whilst the season only got underway in Australia this week, its clear that Honda's new power unit isn't delivering the reliability or power needed for McLaren to mix it amongst the top ten, with Fernando Alonso 2.3 seconds adrift in second practice.
Although reliability looks to have been improved compared to pre-season testing when the team managed very little running and were forced to change the power unit eight times, performance is still a major issue.
The aim of the new unit is to improve the overall power output, but it won't however be ready until later in the season, with Monaco earmarked as a possible debut weekend according to Honda F1 chief Yusuke Hasegawa.
"The power difference is big," he is quoted as saying by Autosport. "To raise the power it is necessary to raise the combustion efficiency, but to do that you have to change the hardware of the current power unit.
"So [we are] developing an improved power unit, but it will take some time to complete. I would like to have it finished and in the car within two months."
Hasegawa still believes there is time to extract from the current specification, with both Alonso and Stoffel Vandoorne having to upshift early in order to reduce vibrations – the cause of many of its pre-season testing problems.
"The vibration was not that much of a problem today. However, there was a little bit at the time of the up-shift, so if we solve that then we may earn a little more laptime."
