Honda appear to be gearing their factory at Milton Keynes to supply a second Formula 1 team despite their exclusivity deal with McLaren and Honda F1 project chief Yusuke Hasegawa indicating that the Japanese manufacturer is merely planning for the future.
Hasegawa said, “We don’t have any room to provide any resources to another team but we should be that type of manufacturer. We have to prepare more resources and organisation.
“Maybe at the end of next year we have to say that we are ready to prepare an engine for another team, so we will prepare the organisation. We’ve already built up the factory in Milton Keynes, a larger one. It’s not huge but it is big enough.
“So if we decided to prepare a second engine for a second team we just have to hire the people, the engineers. We have plenty of spare desks for them!”
Honda have had a troubled return to Formula 1, which they dominated in the late eighties and early nineties.
They departed the sport as a constructor at the end of 2008, their F1 operation morphing into Brawn GP which went on to win the world championship in 2009 albeit with Mercedes power. A year later the operation was bought out by Mercedes who now dominate the sport.
Hasegawa revealed that current F1 teams have expressed interest in an engine supply deal, “Actually everybody is asking me if there’s any possibility that Honda can supply an engine, but it’s just chatting.”
“From a concrete business point of view, no, we don’t have anything,” he confirmed.
McLaren chief Ron Dennis is clear when they will agree to Honda supplying additional teams, “In blunt terms, let’s get to the point where we’ve won the world championship first and then we’ll think about it.”
Read the full story at GRAND PRIX 247
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