SILVERSTONE, Great Britain -- Honda says the results from the first day of running its engine upgrade were "surprisingly encouraging" as both McLaren's finished Friday practice at the British Grand Prix in the top ten.
Honda spent two engine tokens on updating the intake system on its internal combustion engine in the pursuit of greater efficiency and performance. Honda boss Yusuke Hasegawa said it was hard to gain a full understanding of the progress brought by the update, but that the end result was better than expected.
"Silverstone is a track that tests all aspects of the car, therefore it is still too early to confirm if our engine update has taken full effect," Hasegawa said. "Both Fernando and Jenson struggled with the gusty winds and the low grip track, which destabilised the cars and made them difficult to drive.
"However, even though Jenson was limited in FP2 running due to engine data issues, our day's results were surprisingly encouraging, and we think we are heading in the right direction overall.
"Not surprisingly, we are expecting a rainy Saturday and Sunday, but we are hoping that we can reach Q3 without relying on changing conditions as we did at the Austrian GP"
Fernando Alonso added: "It's difficult to understand the effect of upgraded engine because we couldn't test it back to back with the old one, on a different track, but I'm sure Honda will now be looking at the numbers and will confirm there's more power now than before."