Honda F1 chief Yusuke Hasegawa concedes the Japanese manufacturer’s engine changes asked too much in too short a time period but has faitജh his team is on 🐻top of its unreliability issues.

Heading☂ into the 2017 Formula 1 campaign Honda prepared with a near-complete concept change to its power unit development but were hit with constant mechanical woe♐s during pre-season testing while it still remained underpowered against its engine rivals.

The latest failure ultimately ended its partnership with McLaren, which triggered a deal that sees Toro Rosso pick up🉐 Honda as its exclusive engine supplier while McLaren takes on Renault power from 2018, as the Japanese manufacture♒r aims for another fresh beginning in F1 for next season.

Honda chief Hasegawa confessed📖 its radical changes for the start of the 2017 season caused additional problems which it has b🗹een battling to fix throughout the campaign.

“From last year to this year, we have completely changed the configuration concept of the engine,” Hasegawa said. “We tried to do a little bit too much, the modification, so that’s why I have decided to keep the concept for next year, so that from a reliability 💧point of view we are pretty much confide⭕nt.

“So we need to squeeze more performance from the same concept of 🐠the engine, so that’s what we are currently doing.”

Honda has shown encouraging signs of recovery having suffered just one in-rac🅰e engine retirement (Fernando Alonso in the United States Grand Prix) since theඣ Malaysian race while juggling various specification updates.