Honda have entered 2019 with ambitions of becoming the third best power unit supplier in Formula 1, having acquired a contract with Aston Martin Red Bull Racing alongside keeping its ties to Red Bull Toro Rosso Honda.
Logically that would indicate that the Japanese marque are aiming to surpass Renault Sport, who are rebuilding its power unit after underestimating the development potential of the current regulations. If they can achieve this before the Australian Grand Prix next month, the next step for Honda is to make ground on benchmarks Ferrari and Mercedes-Benz.
Red Bull have spoken positively about its early relationship with Honda after a tumultuous end to its partnership with Renault, one that brought four consecutive Drivers’ and Constructors’ Championship victories between 2010-’13.
Honda have struggled to acclimatise to the V6 Turbo Hybrid era, particularly with the McLaren F1 Team from 2015-’17, but the manufacturer made a step forward with Toro Rosso last year.
“We will make a big effort during the winter, and [up until] now of course,” Masashi Yamamoto, Honda’s motorsport boss, told Motorsport.com.
“At least we would like to start from third within the manufacturers, then try to catch the frontrunners up during the season.”
In 2018, Honda managed to bring forward its development in terms of overall speed but questions remain over the reliability of the power unit. Toro Rosso registered the second-most number of retirements last season – one behind Red Bull’s total of 11 – and both Honda and Red Bull do not expect bulletproof reliability immediately.
Toro Rosso have publicly said that they would be willing to take engine penalties in a bid to accelerate development without harming Red Bull in its quest to reclaim the World Championship. Yamamoto is positive that Honda are heading in the “right direction” but ceded that matching Mercedes and Ferrari will be a big task.
“We are not really keen to say a specific time, but Mercedes and Ferrari have loads of knowledge of the grey areas [in the rulebook], so they are still ahead of us,” he added.
“But after four years of our development and trying, we think we are now finding where to go – much clearer than last year, or two years ago.
“So we think we can speed up our development.”