Honda motorsport boss Masashi Yamamoto has compared the way McLaren operates to "sophisticated French cuisine" and its new customer team Toro Rosso's approach to a "delicious stew", which he believes Honda can improve.
Yamamoto used the comparisons to explain why he believes McLaren found it hard to work with Honda and adapt to change, whereas Toro Rosso, a much younger team, will hopefully find it easier and will benefit from Honda's input.
"Working with McLaren, I've realised that they are a very big company which is very systematic," Yamamoto told the official Honda motorsport website.
"It's obviously very strong because of that but at the same time they can find it hard to adapt to change.
"Compare that to Toro Rosso, it is a company that is growing," he explained. "It is very important for us to work in partnership together, heading towards the same goal. So for us we are very much looking forward to being able to work closer.
"Take this for an example: If we compare both teams with different cuisines, let's say McLaren is a very sophisticated French cuisine, that's the way it is.
"Then Toro Rosso is more like a countryside, homemade delicious stew where you can add new ingredients. We're excited to do that."
Yamamoto admitted that Honda failed to deliver what McLaren had expected of the Japanese manufacturer, which ultimately led to the split, but is keen to prove they can get it right with Toro Rosso.
"We didn't perform as well as we hoped in the pre-season tests, so from the beginning of the season onwards we were unable to deliver as much power as we wanted, and McLaren expected.
"Obviously Honda would have preferred to stay in partnership with McLaren, but we were not able to reach the performance and reliability targets set by the team.
"This created tension between us and unfortunately separation was the result. In the world of Formula 1 it's important to get the results, it's part of the deal.
“The regulations go on until 2020 so we still have three years and we want to show our improvements in the technology. We want to show Honda’s potential.
"That is very important for us, to let the world see how we will progress and how we can make it a success."
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