Honda has confirmed plans to introduce its new specification 2.4-litre V8 engine in the Japanese Grand Prix at Suzuka next weekend.

Despite continuing concerns over the unit’s reliability during a full race weekend, the Japanese manufacturer is determined to push through its latest developments in time to meet the new engine-freeze deadline, which now falls after the race at Suzuka.

Honda originally introduced the new engine at Monza, but was forced to abort the plan after two identical failures on Anthony Davidson’s third car during Friday practice.

Jenson Button and Rubens Barrichello missed the entire day’s running and were reverted to Turkey-spec units for qualifying and the race.

Both drivers are now locked into a two-race engine cycle and will thus start using the new unit next weekend.

Test driver Davidson will also not run the new unit through Friday’s practice despite putting more than 1,000km on it in testing at Jerez in the weeks between Monza and Shanghai.

According to sources within Honda the engine will need to run reliably through the Japanese GP weekend for the manufacturer to put it forward for homologation for 2007 onwards.

This entry was posted on Friday, September 29th, 2006 at 7:49 pm and is filed under Car Models [t]. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.