Vasseur explains the reasons for the cancellation of the agreement with Honda

One of the first decisions of Frederic Vasseur at the head of Clean F1 Team was to review the agreement made with Honda for the supply of engines for the 2018 season. Finally, the Swiss team will benefit from the engine and gearbox of Ferrari. And it was this last detail that bothered Vasseur.

« I leave aside Honda's current problems with reliability and performance, because I know they will be back on top at one point or another, tells the Frenchman on the F1 website. Our concern mainly concerned the gearbox. We don't have the internal resources to make our own box, so we knew we had to check with someone."

Honda not supplying a gearbox, Sauber would have had to turn to a team manufacturing boxes compatible with the Honda engine, and the only team in this configuration is McLaren. However, the instability of relations between the Japanese engine manufacturer and the English team has prompted Sauber to exercise caution.

« With Honda, we should have seen with McLaren, but I was not sure that McLaren would continue with Honda. This would have created a strange situation: asking McLaren to supply us with a gearbox for a Honda engine when they weren't even sure they would keep the same engine manufacturer. In this kind of scenario, I was absolutely not confident. Revamping the deal with Sauber was one of Sauber's biggest problems. »

Frédéric Vasseur also reveals that the engineering teams had already started to design the 2018 Sauber, hence the need to make a decision quickly so as not to waste work.