Highlights

Honda ditch new engine debut after double failure

(Reuters)
Updated: 2006-09-09 15:42

Honda ditched plans to run a new version of their engine in Sunday's Italian Grand Prix after a dramatic double failure in Friday practice.

British test driver Anthony Davidson brought the first session at Monza to a halt after only three minutes when his car's engine let go in a cloud of smoke, spewing oil across the circuit.

He managed more laps in the afternoon before hurriedly pulling over with the rear of his car in flames after a similar failure.

As a result, Honda's race drivers, Briton Jenson Button and Brazilian Rubens Barrichello, did not turn a wheel all day.

Under Formula One regulations, engines must last for two races with drivers collecting a 10-place penalty for any unscheduled change.

Button, who took his and the team's first win in Hungary last month, and Barrichello will avoid that sanction, however, because the engines in their cars have yet to be used and can be swapped out.

"It's an indication of how hard we're pushing," said team boss Nick Fry of the problems.

"After winning, we said we wanted to finish the year strongly and we're pulling out all the stops -- and that includes being quite adventurous on the engine front.

"This engine that we've got here has got some fairly substantial differences from the engine we ran previously and it's obvious from what happened today that, for reasons we don't yet understand, something's not quite right."

Fry said the impact of the lost practice sessions would be lessened by the fact that the team had been testing at the Milanese circuit only last week and had a considerable amount of data to work on.

"In terms of lost running time today, it's nothing like as bad as it could have been," he said. "We've paid the price of being very adventurous but it's far from being a disaster."