While Honda is to miss out on a
year's experience of the new technical specifications being introduced
in 2014, rivals Renault have suggested this might be no bad thing.
It's a tense time in F1 heading into the 2014, which sees the biggest
overhaul in technical and engine specifications in the sport in over a
decade, and with manufacturers, teams and drivers alike wondering how
they will fare in the upcoming season.
Having powered Red Bull to a fourth world championship in 2013, the spotlight is on just how well Renault
will make the transition to the new era. The French manufacturer is
also looking 12 months down the road to the return of rivals Honda to
the fray as partners with the McLaren F1 team in 2015.
"One
could argue it's a good advantage and one could argue it's not,"
Renault's head of track operations Remi Taffin said when asked whether
he felt that Honda's extra year of development will give the Japanese
manufacturer the upper hand in the longer term.
"They will not
have a car running [in 2014] and I can't see that not being
detrimental," he said. "[But] they don't have to focus on 2014 and they
are fully focused on '15.
"You have one more year to study your
engine and maybe you could end up with a 2015 engine that is much more
developed," he conceded. "But at the same time we are going to be
developing the engine for 2015.
"We are already working on 2015 and it's very similar.
"It's
just a matter of resources," he explained. "They [can] put all their
resources, money and people on '15 whereas we have to share."
But
Taffin insisted that he'd rather be in Renault's shoes at this point
that Honda, despite the pressure on resources and Honda having that
extra year to plan and develop.
"Even if you have the best of
everything back at the factory, it's always on the car where you
validate everything you have been studying through the winter and over
the last three or four years," he pointed out.
Source;
http://www.crash.net/f1/news/199387/1/honda-may-benefit-from-delaying-f1-return-to-2015.html
