The Castrol Honda World Touring Car Championship (WTCC) team kicked off its 2015 season at the Circuit of Barcelona in Spain today after having carried out extensive winter testing in a bid to close the gap to defending champions Citroën.
Honda have carried out more testing mileage than any other manufacturer over the winter, with the marque focussing on the performance of their engine amongst other areas. Despite this, the top Honda driver in Friday’s official test, Gabriele Tarquini, was still more than a second away from Citroën’s Sébastien Loeb.
Daisuke Horiuchi, Large Project Leader for Civic WTCC Development explains the Japanese brand’s progress during the winter.
“We have done a lot of work on the car since last year to increase our power,” said Horiuchi. “We’ve changed the compression ratio, and we’ve developed a new exhaust system with smoother exhaust gas exit, which have helped us in this. But when you change compression ratio, engine management is very important so we have also developed a good engine map.
“We are still developing all of these points every time we test so we still have work to do but I am happy with our progress so far since last year.”
JAS Motorsport’s Alessandro Mariani adds that in 2014 the team faced an uphill battle to develop the car, with limited in-season testing permitted.
“We started the plan of the development and testing in the second half of last year, but of course the regulations made it difficult to change the car while the season was running. After that, coming back from Macau we started to follow our testing plan developed with Honda R&D.
“Step by step we started to test different parameters on the engine and chassis and lap-by-lap we could see a good improvement. Of course in testing it’s pretty hard to know where you are and what the competitors are doing, but the feeling with the drivers and lap times and consistency makes me quite confident for the beginning of the season.
“We have a big gap to fill because we started last season with a big delay compared to our competitors but after one year we can for sure be much closer to the front.”
Both drivers Gabriele Tarquini and Tiago Monteiro remain optimistic for the season ahead, despite not knowing where they stand compared to the opposition during the colder winter months.
“Last season was difficult but we have worked very hard with the support of Honda and J.A.S. in development and testing to improve the performance,” said Italian Tarquini. “It’s not easy, because especially in the winter the conditions are not the same as in the season so it’s difficult to compare performance, but we are quite optimistic. I think we are in the right direction in terms of performance so we are quite happy.”
Monteiro will be the only one of the team’s drivers to experience a home race in 2015 – something which he is especially looking forward to.
“There has been a lot of development last year so now we need the track time with the new car. But I’m looking forward to the season, and I’m very excited about the Portuguese round at Vila Real, especially as it was quite unexpected. It’s a revival of this former racetrack with a lot of history, and like a mix of Nordschleife and Macau, so it will be a big challenge for us drivers.”