Ahead of its third season since its return to F1, Honda is to change the layout and architecture of its engine.

Amidst speculation that the Japanese manufacturer was looking to rip up its programme and start again, Honda has been saying very little, instead it is McLaren technical director Tim Goss who has let the cat out of the bag.

"For 2017, the Honda engine architecture and layout have been altered to serve both for performance and packaging needs," he revealed.

"The new power unit takes much of the learning from the past two seasons, but has been specifically redesigned for this season."

On its return to F1 in 2015, Honda opted for a controversial 'size zero' concept, and it was the extremely tight packaging arrangement at the rear of the McLaren which most cited as the cause of many of the problems surrounding the Japanese manufacturer's dreadful debut season.

"It was like playing Whack-a-Mole," admitted then engine boss Yasuhisa Arai, "As soon as we resolved one problem, another popped up."

With the scrapping of the hugely unpopular token system this year, Honda is free to move away from its own previous design and most likely follow the example of Mercedes which has the compressor at one end of the engine and the turbine at the other, whereas Honda's previous design featured a split turbo and compressor within the engine V-bank.

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READERS COMMENTS

1. Posted by SideGlance, 11/01/2017 18:33

"It boils down to the ICE, the 'engine' needs to be powerful in itself, battery just augments. So much money for so awful sounding engines, sad.

An in-line 4 cylinder and high turbo boost would have at least made things wild and exciting, maybe even better sound.

Imagine wheel spin at 150mph! Now that would add to excitement and driver thrill & maybe some wild ass racing !!

Mercedes makes this so boring, a budget limit would at least help in the competitive fun of F1, maybe everyone simply uses same engines, but randomly set boost limits of the turbo, something to make it more exciting for fans & drivers - no sweat, no piss in pants = boring !!"

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2. Posted by Paul C, 10/01/2017 4:09

"Tokens belong in video games, not real sport. Outta here foul system! "

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3. Posted by edllorca, 07/01/2017 3:12

"About time, those tokens were ridiculous to the point of being moronic."

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