Honda Racing’s president, Koji Watanabe, has delivered a direct message to the FIA amid the ongoing Formula 1 power unit loophole furore.
With the new season, cornerstoned by a fresh regulations cycle, just weeks away, there is growing discontent amongst some of the engine manufacturers.
This is down to an apparent loophole within the new rulebook in relation to the compression ratio of the new 50-50 V6 hybrid engines.
The legal ceilng for the ratio is 16:1, and is measured at ambient temperatures, the precise area in which the loophole has been apparently found.
Mercedes, and the Red Bull-Ford powertrains venture, have found a way to increase the ratio when the temperatures are above ambient, potentially leading to a performance advantage.
This could lead to huge gains per lap, and has already been projected at around three to four tenths of a second per lap at the season-opening at the Albert Park Circuit in Melbourne.
The other three OEMs, Audi, Ferrari and Honda, will sit with the FIA at a meeting before the first pre-season test in Barcelona scheduled for today [Thursday].
At the launch of its power unit, which will exclusively power Aston Martin this year, Watanabe set out the Japanese marque‘s standpoint on the situation.
“This year starts the new regulations, the interpretation of the regulations and the operations for it, so it is not just on this, but also there are a lot of factors that need to come into discussion,” he said.
“So there’s more to it, we would like to keep them aside for now. But then we want to make it clear that we want to meet and comply with the regulations as we developed in this.
“Regulations do not have everything listed very clearly, bit by bit. So in the new regulation, we look into the possibility of the new technology for each of the different power units.”
Honda keen to show FIA its ‘ideas’
Watanabe admitted that the rules will leave “room for interpretation” open, and indicated that Honda itself has its own “different ideas” and is keen for the FIA to give its feedback on them.
“There is a lot of room for interpretation as well, and this is also part of the race,” he continued. “For the FIA, it’s up to them to decide whether it’s good or bad.
“For Honda, we have a lot of different ideas, and we would like to discuss with the FIA to understand if our ideas are accepted or if they are not OK.
“That’s how we’re going to proceed; we would always look to FIA to consult them on regulation-related matters.”
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