Both Honda and McLaren admit a sense of relief that they can now move on after a difficult three-year partnership and concentrate on their new respective projects for 2018.
2017 was the final straw for the British team as major flaws with a design overhaul of the Japanese manufacturer’s engine left them struggling to simply finish races for much of the year. Further pressure was applied following missed deadlines for fixes and improvements and ultimately, in September, the two agreed to part ways.
Honda will remain in Formula 1 with Toro Rosso and, before it was announced he would be stepping aside from his role in a company shake-up, now former head of the F1 operation, Yusuke Hasegawa is keen to see a continuation of the progress made towards the end of the year.
“Relief, yes. It is good to concentrate on next season,” he said when asked how he felt after ending the McLaren chapter. “You might not believe us but I don’t think we have a human issue. We have a very good relationship with McLaren.
“I don’t feel anything like it’s a fresh start, it’s just up to us to concentrate now on making our engine better, so from that point of view it is no different, we still have a huge pressure from the inside and the outside.
“I’m pretty confident to work with Toro Rosso as well and it is exciting. It is a new challenge and having more information and creating new relationships with a different group is very exciting.”
Hasegawa does admit regrets that the reunion of what was once a dominant partnership in the 1980’s – early 1990’s didn’t work out but hopes that will drive Honda to keep improving in the future.
“I’ve always mentioned we have no plan to modify the engine concept so from that point of view we’ve already started next year’s engine development, so it’s not a big difference actually for our development group,” he told Autosport initially on the impact of changing teams.
“Of course it’s unfortunate they [McLaren] decided to choose a different engine for next year but this is part of the strategy for them and we need to respect that and we need to be a strong manufacturer so that they and other teams want to choose us in the future.”
As it is McLaren will be using Renault engines in 2018 and the chance to move on from what has been a very frustrating spell of his career is also very welcome for Fernando Alonso.
“Obviously every season when you arrive at the end and you didn’t meet the expectations, it’s kind of a good feeling because it’s turning the page and going for the next goal, the next target,” the double world champion said.
“Clearly for next year, we have high expectations, different goals, different probably philosophy of getting into the car and designing the car also over the winter. Many things are ongoing; all of them make us quite optimistic. So it’s nice also the season finished now and we can concentrate fully on 2018.”