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James Key believes Honda can catch Renault by mid-season

Published on 01 Mar 2018 16:56
13
By: Fergal Walsh

Toro Rosso believes Honda's power unit is very close in terms of performance to former supplier Renault's and the Japanese engine manufacturer can wipe out the gap by the halfway point of the 2018 season.

The statement was made by James Key, Toro Rosso's technical director. "I don't know what Renault have done this year but we had a good feel for where the Renault was last year and at least from the numbers you see, which you always have to treat carefully because they are from different dynos etcetera, it's not so far off." he told Sky Sports.

"Not nearly as far as was being suggested last year actually. It was probably pretty close to Renault towards the end of the season. And obviously they've made steps for this year and that's encouraging." Key added

Toro Rosso changed the engine supplier at the end of 2017 in a swap that involved McLaren as well. The Italian team received Honda power units for 2018, while the Woking based team will race with Renault engines this year.

McLaren had a difficult three-year relationship with Honda. During this period, the Woking based team didn't manage to score a single win, podium or pole position. However, Key is optimistic regarding the Honda engine reliability.

"The good thing about what we saw from Honda last year is despite all the difficulties they had over the first half of the season they still had the capacity to go and develop the power unit and it definitely was better by the end of the year," he added. "That trend appears to have continued into this year and, as long as that trend continues, there's no reason why they can't genuinely be challenging Renault by mid-season or the end of season. That's what we'd like." he continued.

Paul Athes

boudy

Posts: 1,168

can't see any reason on why not, it's already looking so much better than 2017. However this is only testing. We haven't seen the true pace of any car yet. It does look like mcLaren are chasing times based on the fact the were running lots of different softer tire compounds

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Mar 1 2018 - 17:05

F1 News Renault McLaren Honda

Replies (13)

boudy

Posts: 1,168
can't see any reason on why not, it's already looking so much better than 2017. However this is only testing. We haven't seen the true pace of any car yet. It does look like mcLaren are chasing times based on the fact the were running lots of different softer tire compounds
- + 1
- Mar 1 2018 - 17:05
- calle.itw
  
  Posts: 8,527
  I agree, this is still testing, and I believe this season's testing could be one of the least representative in terms of what we will see now compared to what we will see in the season.
  + 0
  
  Mar 1 2018 - 17:12
RS200

Posts: 26
Oh yes. Honda the worst engine by far for the last 3 years will be a race winning engine by mid season. Only a fool couldn't see past this corporate BS.
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- Mar 1 2018 - 18:16
- f1fan0101
  
  Posts: 1,804
  Who said anything about winning a race
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  Mar 1 2018 - 18:57
- Bhurt
  
  Posts: 320
  @RS200, it would also take some kind of fool to misread the entire article. Well done!
  + 1
  
  Mar 1 2018 - 21:47
- flilot
  
  Posts: 3
  Stick to your old Fords with simple two letter and three number names, mate. Reading larger words in bigger paragraphs clearly isn't your forte.
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  Mar 4 2018 - 16:31
Pauli

Posts: 140
Sounds very promising that Honda is by far most improved PU for this season. Their reliability looks good already and matching last year Renault will likely put them somewhere like only about 75hp down compared to this year Mercedes instead of about 125hp estimated last year. (That estimates Honda improving about 100hp and Mercedes about 50hp)

If Homda can keep the speed of development even close to what they have had since redesigning PU for 2017 they should be competitive alternative for 2019. It looks like a very hard PU decision for RB if Renault PU has reduced performance deficit and has improved reliability.
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- Mar 1 2018 - 18:51
- Pauli
  
  Posts: 140
  End of season Renult. That would probably be 25hp more improvement which would be really huge development. Basically 125hp development would mean about 2.5 years work from Mercedes.
  
  But I actually can by it that Honda is only 50-75hp down in power based on their testing results. STR has posted a bit better times than I excepted which could be explained by Honda improving faster that I excepted.
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  Mar 1 2018 - 19:47
mcbhargav

Posts: 1,332
I dont buy it.
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- Mar 1 2018 - 19:05
ajpennypacker

Posts: 2,475
I must admit that Honda has already proved wrong my predictions about testing. Their performance is clearly not on par with other PUs, but they're not far. Realiability, however, that's been impressive. A pleasant surprise.
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- Mar 1 2018 - 22:49
Barron

Posts: 625
I believe the commments by James Key should be taken as a motivation exercise for Honda. “There’s no reason why” translates to “there are no excuses” and “we’d like to” means “you will or you will end up out of F1”. Let’s look at the testing times. They are still 3 secs lap off the top. That’s huge but it may well be chassis related. Renault have got a reliability mountain to climb too and will keep the power down until they find it. It doesn’t seem anyone has changed a PU yet? This will be a first! I certainly think Honda are able to “catch” Renault by mid season, but then I expect Renault to move ahead again in the power stakes. I don’t think Honda will ever recover these 3 lost years.
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- Mar 2 2018 - 10:06
UncleElias

Posts: 5
Honda has the right platform as far as the split turbo/compressor goes. The question is can they develop their ICE, electrics (MGU h+K) and software mappings to match Renault. They seem to have gotten the reliability right, but they probably wasn't pushing the engine yet. That would be the prudent strategy, get as much running so that they can study the heat, wear and efficiency.

I hope Toro Rosso/Red Bull advise Honda to go slow in their development. Better to learn incrementally than to constantly stay at square one because the car got very little mileage.
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- Mar 3 2018 - 05:51
flilot

Posts: 3
Can't see it myself. Renault won't be standing still whist Honda develop. By the time they've caught up with where Renault are, they will have moved on incrementally.
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- Mar 4 2018 - 16:35