Honda pleased with ’13 engine progress

Honda is pleased with the development progress that has been made with its IndyCar engine as it prepares for the 2013 season.

IndyCar regulations require manufacturers to homologate their engines by January 18, after which many areas of the powerplant will be subject to a development freeze during the year.

Honda lost out to Chevrolet for this year’s manufacturers’ title, in the American firm’s first season back in the series.

Click here to read how Chevrolet stole a march in IndyCar’s 2012 engine war

But HPD technical director Roger Griffiths told AUTOSPORT that he is encouraged by the progress his team is making during the off-season.

“We’re feeling reasonably confident,” he said.

“We’ll never know until we get to [the season-opener at] St Petersburg, but we set our priorities very early on for what we wanted to achieve over the winter, and they were very clear and everybody has been focused on working towards these.

“That’s what has been driving us forward, and we have a really good group of guys who are focused on it.”

Chevrolet IndyCar program manager Chris Berube preferred to keep his cards close to his chest regarding how much of a step forward has been made with partner Ilmor.

“That’s a crystal ball question,” Berube said. “I’m not privy to what Honda’s doing.

“We’re certainly aware of what must be homologated and we’ll take advantage of that, but we won’t know [where we stand] until that first race.”

Source: http://www.iracing.com/inracingnews/real-world-racing/indycar-news/indycar/honda-pleased-with-13-engine-progress

Miguel Ángel Guerra Roberto Guerrero Maurício Gugelmin Dan Gurney Hubert Hahne