Ferrari’s Stefano Domenicali recently admitted that he thought Honda would have an unfair advantage by entering the sport in 2015 – a year after the new engine regulations are introduced.
Renault’s head of trackside operations, Remi Taffin, agrees to a point, but also believes the late arrival could have a negative effect for the Japanese manufacturer.
“One could argue it’s a good advantage and one could argue it’s not,” he explained. “You have one more year to study your engine and maybe you could end up with a 2015 engine that is much more developed, but at the same time we are going to be developing the engine for 2015 – we are already working on 2015 – and it’s very similar.
“It’s just a matter of resources because they don’t have to focus on 2014 and they are fully focused on ’15. This could be an advantage because they put all their resources, money and people on ’15 whereas we have to share.”
Renault, Ferrari and Mercedes must freeze their development programmes after February 28th, unless the changes relate to reliability. Honda however has until next year to develop its power unit which will be exclusively available to McLaren.
Taffin however says no amount of factory development can match on-track testing, of which the current suppliers will have a full season of, whilst Honda won’t.
“They will not have a car running and I can’t see that not being detrimental,” he said. “Even if you have the best of everything back at the factory, it’s always on the car where you validate everything you have been studying through the winter and over the last three or four years.”
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