Vandoorne: New Honda engine provides "no big" difference

McLaren's Stoffel Vandoorne has revealed that the he believes that the new "spec 3" Honda engine that the team is running this weekend will provide no major improvement in performance, joining Fernando Alonso in opinion to expect "nothing" from the engine update. 

"I do not think it will make a big difference," Vandoorne told Belgium's RTBF in Austria. "We will have to see if there is really a performance gain on the track in first practice. What is positive is that there is something new, so from that point of view any small tenths are welcome." 

After FP1 in Austria, McLaren ended the session in seventh and ninth fastest, suggesting that small inroads have been made in gaining performance. However, the best times that the McLaren pair set were on the fastest ultrasoft tyre compound while the rest of the field apart from Esteban Ocon and Force India development driver, Alfonso Celis Jr, posted their fastest times on either the soft or the supersoft tyre. For this reason, come qualifying, it is difficult to expect that the "spec 3" update will provide the performance gain that McLaren is looking for. 

While McLaren's struggle with Honda continues, Renault's Nico Hulkenberg confirmed that the MCL-32 is the oddest sounding car on the grid. "In the slow corners, it is by far the loudest," he told Auto Motor und Sport after spending some time trackside in Baku. "It gargles and rattles like a truck and you wonder how it can race at all. Then when they go on the throttle, the engine suddenly becomes quiet and you can almost not hear it at all."

Chris Soulsby