Honda Power Unit Hardware & Software

[Badger]

For a different formula.

Where a majority of the power unit is very similar. As mentioned previously. Koji Watanabe specifically pointed out the vibrations produced by the power unit are almost identical to those produced in the last engine and they were not an issue with Red Bull at all. Integration between both entity's is key here, amateur to imply otherwise.

What is this narrative Honda needs help to succeed? It's beyond short sighted and there are valid explanations that have hindered them, but it seems the drama avenue is preferred over actual technical analysis.

- 2015: Joined earlier than desired, had been totally out of F1, needed to rebuild, no existing engineers from other teams were employed to assist in engine design (as is the case with Audi and RBPT and with a similar ICE and reduced complexity). Admitted underestimating PU complexity.
- 2016: Engine greatly improved, but hamstrung by restrictive token system preventing desired redesign and fast updates. Band-aid fixes like the raised intake plenum for a larger turbo were necessary.
- 2017: Token system dropped. New engine architecture introduced, still learning/researching pre-chamber capabilities and split turbo, physical size restricted by team, very pre-mature MGU-H design.
- 2018: Large step forward with Toro Rosso, Honda Jet staff brought in for MGU-H. Surpasses Renault
- 2019-2020: Continual steps forward, power unit is competitive and winning races. Surpasses Ferrari in 2019 (I'm ignoring the dodgy Ferrari engine for the first half of the season).
- 2021-2025: New PU architecture, which proceeded to be class of the field for 5 years, surpassing all rivals in most measurable aspects. Reliability, deployment, energy harvesting, driveability, power.

- 2026: Returned and began work 12 months later than competition with reduced staff. Avenues where Honda had great advantage on the ICE were completely removed by new regs. Reduced compression ratio, removal of MGU-H, removal of in cylinder pressure sensors during race weekend operations. All which completely stripped Honda's combustion technique from the previous engine. Forced to start again, most previous learnings nullified. New engine is down on output, matched with a very premature chassis while also learning how to integrate with a completely new team. Engine team is back to full strength early in the season.

By the sounds, the second specification has promise and they will only improve from here. They have only ever improved, regardless of where they started and end up surpassing rivals, so their development speed is impressive. If anything, it should give confidence for the future of what they can clearly do and have demonstrated. It is just disappointing uninformed management decisions cause them to flip flop in and out of F1, causing most of these issues. Going forward though with HRC now in charge as a separate entity to the Honda Global board room, that behaviour should halt entirely.

tl;dr: They have always started while facing adversity, but always recover and do so quickly. Literally zero basis for this "can't do it on their own" narrative.

Excuses.

- Joining when you are not ready is on you, no one forced Honda to return. When you take on a partnership and say you can deliver on time it's up to you to fulfill that obligation.
- Joining late does not account for the 6 years it took to catch up or the absolutely enormous power deficits they started with in 2015 and 2026. Having a 10%+ HP deficit in modern F1 is crazy, especially for a global manufacturer with Honda's pedigree.
- There are other teams who had more catching up to do than Honda. RBPT needed to build a factory and assemble an entire team from nothing + they had no previous IP or automotive technology to rely on. Audi also built their team from scratch with no previous IP. Honda already had a world class factory, they had personnel within the company with huge F1 experience, and they had genuinely competitive IP to draw from. They had all the pre-requisites to deliver something at least decent and they came up with a total dud. The contrast between the expectations and the reality of what they delivered speaks volumes here.

[Bill]

For a different formula.

Where a majority of the power unit is very similar. As mentioned previously. Koji Watanabe specifically pointed out the vibrations produced by the power unit are almost identical to those produced in the last engine and they were not an issue with Red Bull at all. Integration between both entity's is key here, amateur to imply otherwise.

What is this narrative Honda needs help to succeed? It's beyond short sighted and there are valid explanations that have hindered them, but it seems the drama avenue is preferred over actual technical analysis.

- 2015: Joined earlier than desired, had been totally out of F1, needed to rebuild, no existing engineers from other teams were employed to assist in engine design (as is the case with Audi and RBPT and with a similar ICE and reduced complexity). Admitted underestimating PU complexity.
- 2016: Engine greatly improved, but hamstrung by restrictive token system preventing desired redesign and fast updates. Band-aid fixes like the raised intake plenum for a larger turbo were necessary.
- 2017: Token system dropped. New engine architecture introduced, still learning/researching pre-chamber capabilities and split turbo, physical size restricted by team, very pre-mature MGU-H design.
- 2018: Large step forward with Toro Rosso, Honda Jet staff brought in for MGU-H. Surpasses Renault
- 2019-2020: Continual steps forward, power unit is competitive and winning races. Surpasses Ferrari in 2019 (I'm ignoring the dodgy Ferrari engine for the first half of the season).
- 2021-2025: New PU architecture, which proceeded to be class of the field for 5 years, surpassing all rivals in most measurable aspects. Reliability, deployment, energy harvesting, driveability, power.

- 2026: Returned and began work 12 months later than competition with reduced staff. Avenues where Honda had great advantage on the ICE were completely removed by new regs. Reduced compression ratio, removal of MGU-H, removal of in cylinder pressure sensors during race weekend operations. All which completely stripped Honda's combustion technique from the previous engine. Forced to start again, most previous learnings nullified. New engine is down on output, matched with a very premature chassis while also learning how to integrate with a completely new team. Engine team is back to full strength early in the season.

By the sounds, the second specification has promise and they will only improve from here. They have only ever improved, regardless of where they started and end up surpassing rivals, so their development speed is impressive. If anything, it should give confidence for the future of what they can clearly do and have demonstrated. It is just disappointing uninformed management decisions cause them to flip flop in and out of F1, causing most of these issues. Going forward though with HRC now in charge as a separate entity to the Honda Global board room, that behaviour should halt entirely.

tl;dr: They have always started while facing adversity, but always recover and do so quickly. Literally zero basis for this "can't do it on their own" narrative.

Excuses.

- Joining when you are not ready is on you, no one forced Honda to return. When you take on a partnership and say you can deliver on time it's up to you to fulfill that obligation.
- Joining late does not account for the 6 years it took to catch up or the absolutely enormous power deficits they started with in 2015 and 2026. Having a 10%+ HP deficit in modern F1 is crazy, especially for a global manufacturer with Honda's pedigree.
- There are other teams who had more catching up to do than Honda. RBPT needed to build a factory and assemble an entire team from nothing + they had no previous IP or automotive technology to rely on. Audi also built their team from scratch with no previous IP. Honda already had a world class factory, they had personnel within the company with huge F1 experience, and they had genuinely competitive IP to draw from. They had all the pre-requisites to deliver something at least decent and they came up with a total dud. The contrast between the expectations and the reality of what they delivered speaks volumes here.

honda yes did catch up their Mercedes and overtook them and won the world champion .without them you would had been staring at Mercedes 10 year dominance. Mercedes has a 5 years head start in development having started in 2007 and had the benefit of years of running kers as exprience.honda will have and upgrade and will have power increase and weight reduction. Aston will have new gearbox which help with drivability and assist with electric recovery.so total close 1 second in laptime.

[diffuser]

Excuses.

- Joining when you are not ready is on you, no one forced Honda to return. When you take on a partnership and say you can deliver on time it's up to you to fulfill that obligation.

Disagree. It's on AMR F1 to make sure they get what they want out of Honda. Honda is simply there to educate its engineers and serve as a proving ground for them. I'm not certain Honda cares how bad they look at the start of the project, as long as they end up being, arguably, the best at some point.

You could argue that Honda should have enough pride to come into the new regulations prepared, but that's not Honda's primary goal. It's AMR F1's responsibility to ensure Honda is ready. Since AMR F1 didn't come prepared themselves, it's hard for them to point fingers. In fact a strong argument could be made that AMR F1's lack of preparedness further hindered Honda. A prepared AMR F1 could have decreased Honda's weakness.