FIA hands Honda extra power unit token for engine rebuild

Given the need to revise their engine block and exhaust system prior to Sepang, Honda have applied to use two power tokens to the FIA to make the necessary changes.

With said changes tested by Fernando Alonso during Friday practice, the encouraging results will allow the Spaniard to race with the updates this weekend at Suzuka.

Sources claim however that the FIA had deemed that Honda did not need to use the token they had applied for with regards to changing the engine block – mainly because the changes made were for reliability, not for power.

A spokesperson for Honda said: “We had applied to the FIA for two tokens, one for the engine block and one for lightweight exhaust. The FIA has come back to us in Malaysia [saying] that the engine block [modification] is related to reliability, therefore it was not necessary for us to submit token use.”

That said, the Japanese manufacturer still has two power tokens to use for the remainder of the season. So far, only Ferrari have exhausted all 32 allocated tokens for power changes during the season.

While McLaren actually applied and used the changes over the Sepang weekend, the FIA did not issue an official token count update because it needed more time to assess the situation.

The current running total for token use are as follows:

Ferrari 32 (0 remaining)
Honda 30 (2 remaining)
Mercedes 26 (6 remaining)
Renault 14 (18 remaining)