Honda’s F1 engine chief Yusuke Hasegawa has confirmed the Japanese car manufacturer is investigating whether a loud noise Jenson Button heard before retiring from the Bahrain Grand Prix was caused by a power unit issue or some other fault.
Honda has begun the investigation process of Button’s power unit used in Bahrain to make sure a similar issue does not arise at the Chines Grand Prix.
Button looked set for a points finish when he was running tenth at the Sakhir circuit but his McLaren stopped with what the team believes was a Honda power unit problem just six laps into the 57-lap race. Whilst Button’s race was over prematurely his rookie teammate for the weekend Stoffel Vandoorne managed to finish tenth on his Formula One début after qualifying in 12th, showing the 2016 McLaren has the pace to get into the points.
Whilst Honda did a routine investigation at the track on Sunday Yusuke Hasegawa confirmed the power unit will need investigating back at Honda’s factory to understand precisely what the issue was.
Yusuke told Motorsport.com, “It was obviously a power unit issue.”
“Jenson mentioned that he lost power and there was some big noise, so he stopped the car by himself. It could be mechanical trouble but we don’t know yet.”
He went on to reveal Button had advised McLaren and Honda about a noise he had heard from the car in qualifying but when the engineers investigated they found no faults with the power unit or car what so ever.
“Jenson mentioned he heard some small noise from the power unit from Saturday, but we didn’t see any issue on the data,” he said.
“We didn’t see anything. We don’t know if that is related to the trouble.”
