F1 | Hasegawa confirms: “We are doing everything to convince McLaren to stay with Honda”

Il boss of Honda Yusuke Hasegawa admitted that the Japanese manufacturer is struggling for to convince la McLaren a stay with them also for the next year, and they are doing everything they can to keep the partnership between the two parties alive. On the other hand, however, La McLaren she's ready to do a announcement this week to clarify their situation at a motorsport level with a view to 2018 and the future. In fact, there has been talk of Renault and recently in Italian GP there was a business meeting between Zak Brown, Ross Brawn and Abiteboul of Renault precisely for the supply of McLaren engines. Without a McLaren announcement yet, it remains Honda powered, despite the various rumors with Renault.

Honda, to avoid McLaren's departure, said he was working with the team to convince him not to leave the agreement with the Japanese manufacturer: “We're still trying to put in some good performances to convince them, but I'm not sure it's enough,” said Hasegawa, the Honda boss. “Honda will never give up on maintaining this collaboration,” he continued, explaining when the company intends to remain in Formula 1 for much longer.

The high pressure they are always exposed to only helps them Work: “It accelerates our development,” added Hasegawa of Honda's way of operating in these situations. “It becomes motivational inside the factory. From Austria, with the introduction of the engine with specific 3, our development has accelerated and the development rate is very good now. We've seen some performance gains with each update, so that's very encouraging,” she continued.

Hasegawa is also confident compared to the result of the next one Grand Prix, that of Singapore, a very narrow Monte Carlo-style road circuit, where better performance is expected as not too much work is done on the engine in terms of power and top speed: “We have some confidence in terms of competitiveness in Singapore. We have already decided that the current engine will go to Singapore. There will be no updates before that race. We can upgrade some settings or engine settings but we can't do a big upgrade in Singapore in terms of pure engine,” concluded the Honda boss.

Fabiola Granier