Share this: Honda has a reputation for reliable engines in its road cars, so some might have assumed it would be able to make significant gains before the 2017 Formula One World Championship began. Its engineers apparently also thought so, though the improvements they expected to see were too large. Honda F1 technical chief Yusuke Hasegawa revealed Wednesday he and his team thought — with the engine token system scrapped — its power unites could start the season with as much horsepower as Mercedes’ had at the end of 2016, according to Motorsport.com. That mountain simply was too high to climb, however. For perspective, during qualifying for the 2016 Abu Dhabi Grand Prix, the fastest McLaren-Honda was more than 2 seconds per lap slower than the