Hasegawa admits ‘worries’ over vibrations

F1 Fanatic Round-up

Posted on

| Written by

In the round-up: Honda motorsport head Yusuke Hasegawa says the engine supplier are concerned about a potential weakness to vibration in their power unit.

F1 Fanatic Predictions Championship 2017

Win this genuine, race-used F1 rear wing endplate
The 2017 F1 Fanatic Predictions Championship has been launched and we have a new selection of prizes to be won for whoever can make the best predictions over the coming year.

This weekend we’ve got 13 prizes up for grabs. At the end of the year the top players will win genuine raced-used F1 car parts, top-of-the-range motor sport gaming gear and unique F1 artwork.

As always the F1 Fanatic Predictions Championship is free to enter and the prizes are available to players anywhere in the world. You’ve got until the scheduled start time of qualifying to make your first prediction, so enter here now:

Social media

Notable posts from Twitter, Instagram and more:

Comment of the day

As Lewis Hamilton claims Ferrari are the favourites heading into Melbourne, @petebaldwin is bemused…

F1 is such a weird sport… I can’t think of any others where competitors regularly downplay their chances and talk up the opposition.

Can you imagine a boxer saying “I’ve been training hard but I think I’ll probably get knocked out fairly early on?” Or Usain Bolt saying “I’m fast but have you seen this other guy? He’s much better than me…”
@petebaldwin

Happy birthday!

Happy birthday to Gman, Sam and Harvey Pizey!

If you want a birthday shout-out tell us when yours is via the contact form or adding to the list here.

On this day in F1

Lewis Hamilton put his McLaren on pole position for the Malaysian Grand Prix five years ago today.

Author information

Will Wood
Will has been a RaceFans contributor since 2012 during which time he has covered F1 test sessions, launch events and interviewed drivers. He mainly...

Got a potential story, tip or enquiry? Find out more about RaceFans and contact us here.

33 comments on “Hasegawa admits ‘worries’ over vibrations”

  1. With France and Germany coming back next year and with the certainty of a second American race, next year’s calendar will have 22+ races. But Ross Brawn said 21 is the limit. So the obvious question is: what stays and what goes? (Fingers crossed for Bahrain’s removal, although this is unlikely)

    1. Bahrain? For ethical reasons I assume?

      Because we’ve had some good races there.

      1. Exactly for ethical reasons. South Africa was different- there was a public interest there.

  2. Josh (@canadianjosh)
    24th March 2017, 0:41

    Love the social media we re seeing. Amazing.

  3. Oh god, now with the shark fins again…
    Please F1 don’t listen to the fans (too much)

  4. Elaborating on the oil tank issue, he said: “It was a matter of design. There was a baffle plate inside, but it seems that it was not able to properly suck up oil, because its shape was bad.

    “I have changed that. It was a very rudimentary problem.”

    Hang on: it was a very rudimentary problem and yet you didn’t find it until testing started?!?

    I am stunned anyone thinks Honda is going to turn this around.

    1. @k-l-waster – “I am stunned anyone thinks Honda is going to turn this around.”

      Agreed. I’m willing to bet neither McLaren/Honda completes the race Sunday, if either one even makes it to the race. This season will be worse than 2015. At least in 2015 they had some fairly legitimate excuses. Hard to fathom the depth they have sunk to now. As a longtime McLaren fan, the only possible hope I can see on the horizon is a different engine supplier.

    2. @k-l-waster, interestingly, those comments only appear in the English translation of the original interview (a Japanese speaker on the Autosport forums has translated the original Japanese interview, and neither that comment nor the one about the engine mapping modifications are present in the Japanese version). Either those comments were edited out of that interview, or some of those comments could have come from a mistranslation of some of the original comments he made.

    3. I assume it is the translation, but I found it intriguing the fact that Hasegawa talks like he is the one behind everything.

      sentences like “I address the problem…” “I’m worried…” “I have changed that…”

      For me it’s weird, maybe I’m to picky in this sort of thing

      1. Blame Google translate. It does not cope well with the japanese way of speaking. The japanese, especially at work use the passive form very much, so whenever you put that in Google translate it will put “I” where they never exist in the original.

        1. Ah! Thank you JeanRob

          1. Take this with a pinch of salt though.

            I have not read the original article and my level in Japanese is not native, but this is definitely what happens when I use Google translate to check something I am not sure I understood properly my colleagues.
            The other thing is that even though in Japanese they have “me / you / he/she”, they rarely use those. It’s a language that relies heavily on context.

            But yeah, as much as I love Honda and would be happy to work with them, I’m not surprised to hear that the bureaucracy gets in the way. Usually, Japanese company are very slow in the decision making process. Since nobody wants to be the one to be blamed in case something fails, the decisions tend to be taken after a consensus and going through all the ranks up to a certain level in management (sometimes even the CEO).

            One other very important thing that will really really impact the MCL / Honda relationship badly is that in Japan, avoiding confrontations is the norm, so even if it is deserved, being blamed in public is really a strong sign and it will hurt Honda’s trust in MCL.
            Yes they have problems, but that does not mean those guys are not working their assess of. We all have been through a situation when you make a decision and whatever you try, for some reason it keeps getting worse because you have not found that little detail that would change the dynamic and solve the problem.

    4. I still fail to understand how it is that a company like Honda cannot seem to produce a decent, functioning F1 engine. They have race winning turbo V-6’s in Indy and significant hybrid tech in their NSX and, while I get that it is far from a 1-to-1 transfer, I would assume the one or two decent engineers on their staff along with access to a modest amount of funding (yes, that’s sarcasm) would facilitate producing something that could at least run a race distance. I mean, if Renault can do it…?

  5. DC starting to sound like an old man there. I’m pretty sure that there are loads of people, both men and women, who would be great F1 drivers, probably even better than current and former champions, but who have never had the opportunity to even drive a kart.
    I’m guessing that if a few more middle class families encouraged their young daughters to get a kart instead of a pony we’d soon find plenty of girls rising through the ranks. If women can fly fighter jets there’s no physical or genetic reason they can’t race formula cars as well as a man, we just need more women competing in motorsport to inspire more girls to want to grow up to be like Michèle Mouton rather than Kim Kardashian.

    1. No kidding. I like Coulthard, but he’s really put both feet in his mouth there. For every group that hasn’t been somewhere before, there’s always been patronising reasons put forward by those who have why that group is just somehow not made to be there. Silly, really.

      1. For every group that hasn’t been somewhere before, there’s always been patronising reasons put forward by those who have why that group is just somehow not made to be there.

        Very well said @maciek.

    2. women can fly fighter jets

      @beneboy Good point – with that one statement you’ve destroyed DC’s argument – physically and mentally piloting a jet is far more demanding, and women have proven themselves equals at it.

      DC’s blather about “mothering DNA” makes me wonder if he’s deluded enough to think he’s actually passing a back-handed compliment to women.

      Got to love the Daily Record’s put-down of him by titling the article “No-time F1 champion…”. However, it’s obvious that the Daily Record failed to recognize that DC’s also got the mothering gene, hence his F1 performance.

      1. Women can fly fighter jets and they can also drive F1 cars.

        But that’s not the question really – the question is whether or not they can compete at the same level of performance. Why do you think every other sports category is gender separated?

        Compare record holders across the 2 genders in various sport categories and see if you notice an answer.

        1. Women wouldn’t be strapped into a fighter jet if they couldn’t perform at the same level as male pilots. There’s no separate airspace for men and women to dogfight.

          1. Not much dogfighting with modern planes though. It’s just firing off rockets.

    3. I don’t think coulthard is right either. I still think the main reason why there has not been many very good woman drivers (there have been some individuals in many motorsports) is simply because not many woman look at racing as possible careers. You need a big pool of drivers to find the ones who are possible f1 winners. And there just aren’t that many women in that big pool yet.

      But I think that reasoning alone is a bit optimistic. Do women overall have the same desire to drive race cars as men? I still think that fast cars and driving fast are mostly a man thing. Lots of women do enjoy it but still less than men overall. Compared to men not that many women have natural interest in it. Women and men are different. Biologically and psychologically. Not in such way that a woman could not be a winner in f1. But maybe in a way that just makes it less likely because different interests.

      I think some of the latest women in F1 might have actually hurt future women drivers too. Now there is this requirement that women coming into f1 must be pretty. It think is fair to say that the carmen jordas and suzi wolffs were not chosen because of the driving skills. What kind of message does this send to young girls who look at those drivers and may think “she got in because she is pretty and slow. I’m not that pretty, maybe I don’t have a chance?”. Which is of course wrong (I hope).

      1. @socksolid – very nice points.

        Do women overall have the same desire to drive race cars as men?

        This is quite a thought-provoking question. Daredevilry tends to be found more in men than in women. It might be psychological/physiological (i.e. driven by testosterone) or societal/cultural (which means things will improve). In any case, you (I presume) and I both agree that there will be some women interested in motorsport, and I wish they get opportunities to succeed.

        But if DC – who is one face of Formula 1, by virtue of his role as a TV commentator – has such an attitude, we still have some way to go for women to make and entry, and to gain acceptance.

    4. I predict someday a female driver in F1 will surpass DC’s win totals.

      1. If Alonso has a sex change then gets a competitive car does that count?

  6. I can’t understand how a graphic designer AND artist can put Haas in his podium of good liveries for this season.

    That Haas livery is the dullest thing ever. Horrible colour scheme, bad livery design and that bit in the fin that has nothing to do with the rest of the design.

    Seriously baffled by that.

    1. @fer-no65
      I also feel Haas’livery is kind of dull (still an improvement from last year, but only slightly), but they are not actually judging it in absolute beauty, but as a branding exercise, and they make a pretty good point it is an excellent branding exercise…

  7. No time champion hahahahahaa amazing headline

    1. Coulthard is utterly wrong as there are scores of women equaling his ‘no-time F1 Champion’ record ;)

  8. I feel at the moment, the only way Honda can fix their problems is to re-brand the engine, to something like Toyota for example

    1. I feel the only way Honda can fix their problems right now is to source a Mercedes engine and re brand it as Honda

    2. or go the red bull route. keep the current unit and rebrand it Richard Mille

  9. A bit challenging trying heel-and-toe when you’re a karting guy ;)

  10. According to the article below, Honda has admitted they are already working on a next generation, more powerful motor targeted to be complete by the Monaco race. They have given up on the current engine for lack of horsepower!
    Monaco will be testing grounds for the new engine and it’s more than likely Honda will have more “issues” to deal with.
    The season is hopeless for McLaren.

    http://www.autosport.com/news/report.php/id/128621/honda-already-working-on-major-engine-changes

Comments are closed.