14/03/2015
NEWS STORY
As his drivers qualify on back row of Melbourne grid, Ron Dennis has defended engine partner Honda.
While nobody was expecting miracles, the sight of Jenson Button and Kevin Magnussen lining up seventeenth and eighteenth on an eighteen car grid for tomorrow's Australian Grand Prix grid is going to take some getting used to, especially when one considers the pair were on the podium just twelve months ago, albeit following Daniel Ricciardo's disqualification.
Back then, the MP4-29 was powered by the Mercedes power unit, which proved to be the class of the field and looks likely to remain so this year.
Following the nightmare that was pre-season testing, the shadow of which still hangs over the team not only in terms of its performance but the ongoing speculation over Fernando Alonso's crash, nobody was expecting miracle, but to qualify last...
"If your objective is to win a world championship, you have to have a strong OEM (groan... original equipment manufacturer) behind you which has the technology and capability to produce a winning engine," Dennis told Sky Sports F1 following today's session, "and that's what Honda has, they have proven it many times.
"It might take a bit longer than we would like but we are on the journey and we will see it through to the end," he continued.
Leaping to Honda's defence so readily suggests that all the problems lie with the Japanese manufacturer's power unit, but one mustn't forget that Melbourne was the Woking outfit's best result last year despite having the Mercedes package in the back.
"The times say it all," Dennis acknowledged. "We are obviously at the threshold of a very steep hill. We are a long way behind. But the other engine manufacturers have had a year's head start on us and the systems we have developed are complex and clearly not functioning correctly at the moment.
"We are going to be heavily criticised through the opening part of the season," he admitted, "but we know what it takes to win and we have every belief in Honda's ability to produce a winning engine.
"This is an appropriate time to be a strong partner," he insisted. "They understand the problems but we are functioning as one team. If there are any comments to be made about the engine, it's for Honda to make it."
Then, with a nod to Renault, and the fact that before the first race has even taken place, Daniel Ricciardo has used one of his four allowed units, Dennis revealed that Honda is looking at the long game and taking a slightly more conservative approach at this stage.
"Keeping an engine in one piece in this early part of the season is critical for accelerating development," he said, a strategy echoed by Honda boss Yasuhisa Arai. "In Barcelona I expected a good place for us in Australia," said the Japanese, "but unfortunately we don't have the know-how and experience about running in high temperatures.
"We cannot lose the engine in the first race, so our data set is very conservative for the weekend," he revealed, "that's the reason why we are down on power with the MGU-K and the engine itself. That's the reason why."