Honda Power Unit Hardware & Software

[mclaren111]

Autosport:

"From an internal combustion engine point, from our target it isn't very far behind, [but] we clearly understood our top-end power isn't good enough," Hasegawa told Autosport.
"It is a very important point that it needs to improve, especially for overtaking not very strong cars.
"I don't want to disrespect, but even the Sauber or the Haas they [McLaren] struggle to pass.
"I think it's coming from the top-end speed, so we need more top-end speed - it's very clear."
Hasegawa refuted suggestions the new 2016 power unit produces less power than the engine used at the end of last season, but admitted power has been balanced against reliability to better enable McLaren to perfect chassis set-up.
"We thought just providing maximum power wouldn't make sense - we have to find a good balancing point from the reliability and the power," Hasegawa added.
"I don't want to create three-lap engines. To find the balancing point is a very important and difficult job; just getting maximum power is not difficult.
"We didn't save lots of the power, we're actually achieving maximum power nearly; we're already squeezing that.
"We will keep pushing to provide the extra power; so far it's almost equivalent as it was last year."

Interesting comments

[maguetox]

Autosport:

"From an internal combustion engine point, from our target it isn't very far behind, [but] we clearly understood our top-end power isn't good enough," Hasegawa told Autosport.
"It is a very important point that it needs to improve, especially for overtaking not very strong cars.
"I don't want to disrespect, but even the Sauber or the Haas they [McLaren] struggle to pass.
"I think it's coming from the top-end speed, so we need more top-end speed - it's very clear."
Hasegawa refuted suggestions the new 2016 power unit produces less power than the engine used at the end of last season, but admitted power has been balanced against reliability to better enable McLaren to perfect chassis set-up.
"We thought just providing maximum power wouldn't make sense - we have to find a good balancing point from the reliability and the power," Hasegawa added.
"I don't want to create three-lap engines. To find the balancing point is a very important and difficult job; just getting maximum power is not difficult.
"We didn't save lots of the power, we're actually achieving maximum power nearly; we're already squeezing that.
"We will keep pushing to provide the extra power; so far it's almost equivalent as it was last year."

Interesting comments

My understanding is that Honda is running a detuned engine in order to have the reliability to run the whole race.

[Thunder]

Jenson will get a new ICE with a reliability fix. I hope Fernandos (or Stoffels) Engine doesn't fail now from the same thing Jenson suffered.

https://www.autosport.com/news/report.p ... 1458713806

"There was a mechanical issue on Jenson's ICE which we will replace for the upcoming race weekend," said Honda chief Yusuke Hasegawa.

"The situation has been thoroughly investigated and will be rectified in all future engines to be used."

[Pierce89]

"We will keep pushing to provide the extra power; so far it's almost equivalent as it was last year."
http://www.autosport.com/news/report.ph ... pend-speed

Wazari

How are you connecting that sentence to Wazari?

[godlameroso]

Well the overtake button is a quick toggle for a very aggressive engine mode, it's not overtake per-se it's more a put the hammer down quick key. 100kg of fuel and 100kg/hr and most races are 1hr:30min or more, if they went full tilt for the whole race they'd be out of gas with 3/4ths of the race to go. So no matter how you slice it you have to do some management.

They don't need full power for 1:30. Corners, braking etc.

Plus most tracks aren't 100% full throttle, I think Monza is 70% full throttle, and even then, you're not allowed to use max fuel delivery until ~10,000 rpm. I get that, even so there's still some fuel management that goes on during the race.

"We will keep pushing to provide the extra power; so far it's almost equivalent as it was last year." Does this mean the Honda engine is as powerful as last year's or that it's nearly equivalent to this year's power units?

[NL_Fer]

I think they only allow two maps these days, one for dry, the other for wet tyres.

Maybe the overtake allows for 750 more rpm, which is alowed. Or the prevent to mgu-k from quitting early during an overtake, not sure if thats allowed.

[Juzh]

I think they only allow two maps these days, one for dry, the other for wet tyres.

Maybe the overtake allows for 750 more rpm, which is alowed. Or the prevent to mgu-k from quitting early during an overtake, not sure if thats allowed.

Dry and Wet. Those are throttle pedal maps. Power unit itself has a million different settings.

"Overtake" does not allow for "750 more rpm" by any regulation. If the the teams want to rev high it's entirely up to them (none do it, pointless anyway). What it does is probably pump more fuel for brief periods and dumb the battery into mgu-k.

[godlameroso]

I think they only allow two maps these days, one for dry, the other for wet tyres.

Maybe the overtake allows for 750 more rpm, which is alowed. Or the prevent to mgu-k from quitting early during an overtake, not sure if thats allowed.

Dry and Wet. Those are throttle pedal maps. Power unit itself has a million different settings.

"Overtake" does not allow for "750 more rpm" by any regulation. If the the teams want to rev high it's entirely up to them (none do it, pointless anyway). What it does is probably pump more fuel for brief periods and dumb the battery into mgu-k.

Probably more like it drives the K and the H directly from the battery, you have no restriction to how much power you can send to the MGU-H, only 4 mj of energy from the ES and 120kW for the K, the H is unlimited.

[wuzak]

What it does is probably pump more fuel for brief periods and dumb the battery into mgu-k.

Can't pump more fuel in.

At least they are not supposed to be able to.

[Sasha]

The 2016 Honda ICE is now about as powerful as the top 2015 PU.(problem is everybody else had gains for 2016 too)

The 2016 compressor is wider and longer than the one used in 2015.

But Honda needs to go bigger still.

It looks like the Autosport reporter had a hard time translating HondaF1 boss words!

[Juzh]

What it does is probably pump more fuel for brief periods and dumb the battery into mgu-k.

Can't pump more fuel in.

At least they are not supposed to be able to.

True, yes. I went off a little there.

[Juzh]

I think they only allow two maps these days, one for dry, the other for wet tyres.

Maybe the overtake allows for 750 more rpm, which is alowed. Or the prevent to mgu-k from quitting early during an overtake, not sure if thats allowed.

Dry and Wet. Those are throttle pedal maps. Power unit itself has a million different settings.

"Overtake" does not allow for "750 more rpm" by any regulation. If the the teams want to rev high it's entirely up to them (none do it, pointless anyway). What it does is probably pump more fuel for brief periods and dumb the battery into mgu-k.

Probably more like it drives the K and the H directly from the battery, you have no restriction to how much power you can send to the MGU-H, only 4 mj of energy from the ES and 120kW for the K, the H is unlimited.

I'd presume this rarely happens in race situations.

[honda_fun]

The 2016 Honda ICE is now about as powerful as the top 2015 PU.(problem is everybody else had gains for 2016 too)

The 2016 compressor is wider and longer than the one used in 2015.

But Honda needs to go bigger still.

It looks like the Autosport reporter had a hard time translating HondaF1 boss words!

One japanese journalist wrote a report that Mclaren car was peaky chassis and car setting is not done enough. The degradation of Mclaren car' tires was faster than the other teams.
One Honda engineer said Mercedes AMG is not 100hp more powerful than Honda, if it is not so , the output of Mercedes AMG PU is 1000hp!

[GoranF1]

People,i suggesst you listen to Sasha.

[Senna77]

Christian Horner in an interview on the 6th of April answered this question

"Q: From what we’ve seen so far, the Toro Rosso youngsters may well give your two drivers a hard time this year. Is their 2015-spec Ferrari engine still superior to the 2016 Renault power unit?

CH: We estimated the gap in Melbourne to be 0.8 seconds [per lap] between the power units."

Is the 2016 Honda slower than 2016 Renault PU???
As if yes according to Christian Horner Honda would be even further behind.