Yasuhisa Arai, Honda’s motorsport chief, believes that the Japanese car manufacturer’s Formula 1 engine is outperforming rival Renault by 25-horse power.
Arai’s comments come after a difficult weekend for their sole customer McLaren in Belgium, with Fernando Alonso and Jenson Button finishing 13th and 14th respectively.
Button branded his team’s performance in Spa an “embarrassment” after the race, adding: “I was just driving round, the last eight laps were interesting, the guys that were lapping me I was able to have a grandstand view of their race which was the only bit that was fun.”
Despite this, Arai believes that Honda are now better than Renault in terms of power but still languishing behind both Ferrari and the dominant Mercedes.
When asked by Autosport whether Honda had made any ground on the other engine manufacturers, Arai replied: “40-50[hp] behind Mercedes but about 25 ahead of Renault.
“Our engine is a little bit behind Ferrari but much better than the Renault team. Mercedes are still so far away.
“But I have confidence that the second half of the season, we will try hard to catch the top two teams.
“It may be that it will be difficult to catch the top teams as they have good reliability and good combustion characteristics.
“But I want to be close to the top teams by the end of the season.”
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