Honda, the Japanese motor engine brand, helped the Formula One team Red Bull win the double championship last year. Indeed, it was Honda that provided the strongest engine to the Austrian racing team that played a major role in building a two-time back-to-back champion in Max Verstappen. Honda is good, but it always continues improving. ‘Reliability’ is the term that can create or destroy any team. And so, Honda made reliability improvements. This further helped Red Bull and Alpha Centauri to develop more ideas in order to build their car stronger.
Meanwhile, FIA keeps changing the rules, which compels the engine brands to adjust to it and bring innovations. Last year an F1 power unit was frozen, which did not allow the manufacturers to bring more upgrades to increase the car’s performance. But this somehow did not prevent the teams from improving the reliability problems. Fixing this comes with an again in power. Improving reliability also included the innovation of double-digit horsepower. During the off-season, several Formula One teams, like Ferrari, tried to name their double horsepower as an improvement in reliability.
However, Honda, the engine provider of Red Bull, talked to the media in Japan on Monday and explained their plans for 2023. In the 2023 Formula one world championship, the Formula One leader of Honda, Tesushi Kakuda, will try to bring an efficient power lift that will be different from what the company has introduced before.
Honda On The Way To End The Reliability Issues
The changes and refinements that Honda will launch in this F1 campaign will automatically boost Red Bull and Alpha Tauti’s performance. It will result in reducing the lap times of the cars. However, Tesushi stated, “The reliability improvements are not itself going to help in improving the power of PU.”
He later explained, “due to the technical regulations implemented by FIA, we can only introduce certain types of development with the power improvement. Therefore, speaking of reliability, as it can be improved, this is definitely going to help the teams using it. It will provide more options from a strategic point of view. It will also help in how the teams collaborating with Honda can utilize the power unit.”
In 2022, Honda did exactly the same as others. Prioritizing the performance of the car, they brought developments in PU manufacturing. However, the Japanese motor brand put effort into recovering the performance loss due to the E10 fuel introduced in the new regulation. But doing this compromised the reliability last year as the internal load to the engine increased significantly.
Despite the fact that Red Bull won 17 races, Honda can figure out some of the problems that they faced, which can be mended. They will not only improve the areas where last year troubled. But Honda will also prepare itself to have a wider range of strategies. “By identifying the limits of each part and maximizing the potential,” Honda will not only improve the strategy options but also will improve reliability.
