Honda says it has identified the cause of several IndyCar engine failures and will put a fix in place to ensure it doesn't remain a recurring issue this season.
Honda has suffered a spate of failures this season, including three during the Indianapolis 500 which cost Formula 1's Fernando Alonso a shot at victory.
Art St. Cyr, president of Honda Performance Development, said on Saturday that they had pinpointed the problem, but refused to specify exactly what had failed, but said a fix was in place and it would be rolled out gradually.
"There is no plan right now to do a wholesale change of our engines," he told the official IndyCar website. "Right now, it looks like [the failure] happens in about one out of every eight engines. If it does fail, it usually fails early, so when that problem arises, it shows up pretty quick.
"Our expectations are that once we get the engines in the spares pool, we will continue using the engines that are in the car throughout the remainder of their mileage. Then those will be replaced with new engines."
A number of engines will be replaced for this weekend's Iowa Speedway race with the majority of drivers having the fix in place at the following race weekend.
Speaking about the Indy 500 failures in particular, St. Cyr said they took a risk in running the engines when they knew an issue existed – although not specifically which part – and said it was a tradeoff they had to make.
"When you make more horsepower, you do expose parts to more stresses. That's the fundamental thing about it. In this particular case, what it did is it reduced our safety factor on that particular part.
"In general, our main goal is to win the Indy 500. We knew that even if we ran the engines at full power, the majority of our engines were going to make it. In that case, we were willing to make that tradeoff. If it was going to fail every engine, then maybe not.
"Every circumstance is different, but in this case, we were willing to make that call. You're at risk every year."
Honda did still win the event with Japanese driver Takuma Sato and the Andretti Autosport team.
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