Honda bullish about ability to max the new F1 PU era

[John S]

Honda's Koji Watanabe seems very excited about the new tie up with Aston Martin team (see below) and is pretty convincing on why they may be on the money with the PU right out of the box next year.

But is he right if some others have possible piston expanding capabilities built in to their ICE? 

Guess time will tell if Honda too have seen & acted on the potential loophole, or indeed if these grey area shenanigans mount to a hill of beans. 
Watanabe seems to be suggesting Energy management will be the biggest make or break factor.

"There is a lot of passion in the AM team, but also a great deal of quality. Pair that with Honda's development skills and ability to provide winning power units, and we have the potential to be successful in F1, not just in 2026, but also '27, '28 and beyond. We are on the eve of something very special."

"The new engines don't have the MGU-H, this means there will be some turbo-lag to handle. The other challenge is tripling the output of the electrical motor, while leaving the capacity of the energy store almost unchanged. The key factor here will be making energy management more efficient. It's the most difficult technical challenge in the new regulations.

"Efficiency is going to be the decisive factor in F1's new era, and at Honda, we take pride in having the world's most advanced battery technology. It's going to be important to leverage this strength while also enhancing our energy management performance.

"There is also the power unit cost cap to consider, which will be $130m (£97m) per year from 2026 and covers all costs related to the design, production and supply of the power unit. It's a very serious subject and a significant change in how a power unit supplier will operate, and comes at a time of these major technical changes."

Paras from a longer piece 'We're on the eve of something...', courtesy PitPass.com, 19th Dec.