In the round-up: Honda believes it enjoys an advantage over its power unit manufacturer rivals in the performance of its electrical systems.
In brief
Honda enjoying “clear advantage” in MGU-K
Honda Racing Corporation’s executive chief engineer and Formula 1 project leader Tetsushi Kakuda has explained how regulation changes and a development freeze have impacted how its latest powertrains for Red Bull and AlphaTauri have been developed.
“Last year, I believe all the power unit manufacturers prioritised performance in their development, and so did we,” said Kakuda. “We made every effort to recover the performance loss due to the E10 fuel introduced by the regulation change.
“But as a result, the internal load to the engine increased significantly compared to the previous year and so reliability was severely compromised. As a result, several problems surfaced during the 2022 season and we have been working to address those problems for this season.”
In addition to solving existing issues, Honda has been “preparing ourselves to have wider strategies by identifying the limits of each part and maximising its potential” at its research and development facility in Sakura, Japan.
“We deepened our understanding of our PU to further optimise the control and energy management,” Kakuda added. “We have also matured ourselves in the electrification technologies where we had a clear advantage last year, especially the MGU-K deployment.”
“We believe we are fully prepared for the pre-season tests starting this week.”
Cape Town expected to be a demanding track on energy consumption
Maserati’s racing director Jeremy Colancon says Formula E’s new Cape Town track, which it will race at this weekend, “is a very energy sensitive circuit, meaning that there will be a lot of energy saving during the race”, which is the fifth of the 2022-23 season.
“The track has a lot of high-speed corners, which make it more difficult to recover energy in an efficient way, but the key places for management will be in turns four, five, seven, and 11,” Colancon added.
It has been a difficult return to single-seater racing for Maserati, who dominated pre-season testing but have only scored three points in four races this season.
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