Honda and McLaren F1 will need experienced drivers
For Jenson Button, Honda's return in 2015 with McLaren will be under better conditions if two experienced drivers can provide their feedback and impressions.
In 2015, Honda will make its grand return to F1 after leaving the premier discipline at the end of the 2008 season, as the engine supplier for Team McLaren. This partnership, which hadn’t been in place since the 1992 season, marking the end of the victorious Prost-Senna-McLaren-Honda era, will take effect in the second year of a major regulatory change with the introduction of the hybrid turbo engine this season.
For Jenson Button, McLaren driver since 2010 and who is expected to remain at Woking in 2015, Honda’s situation will require a significant input of experience from the drivers: « It would help them to have experienced drivers […] for development issues. It’s a power unit you’re going to try to fit into a lot of holes with the ERS, so you need feedback and sensations from drivers, based on experience; you’re really going to benefit from that, » he explains to *Autosport*.
It is no secret that Honda, as part of its return, is ready to poach another World Champion in view of the next season. Discussions have been initiated with Fernando Alonso and Sebastian Vettel, even though both men are tied to Ferrari and Red Bull for 2015. The scale currently leans in favor of the Spaniard, whose future is still uncertain.
Jenson Button, who has not yet been officially extended, has participated in 261 Grand Prix in his career, which began in 2000. He is the most experienced driver on the grid and has previously worked with Honda when it had its own team, between 2006 and 2008. The Briton even claimed the brand’s only victory during this period, in Hungary in 2006.
He hopes that the partnership between McLaren and Honda will quickly bear fruit, thanks in particular to the cultural understanding between the two companies: « The things a team might struggle with when working with a Japanese manufacturer, if you’re not attentive to them, are the Japanese language and culture, but I think McLaren understands this. »
« They have worked with Honda before, a long time ago […] and I see no problem as long as they spend enough time working closely with Honda. I don’t just mean the engineers and aerodynamicists; the mechanics have to spend time understanding Japanese culture and their way of working too. They all know it and do it, so I think it will be a good partnership. »
