Milton Keynes, Buckinghamshire - These are the first previews Honda has released of its new Formula One engine, which will power McLaren's Grand Prix campaigns from the 2015 season onwards.
Officially, it's not just a turbocharged V6 engine; most manufacturers are insisting on calling them 'power units' because the package includes a complex energy recovery system.
Honda dropped out of Formula One at the end of 2008, citing spiralling costs in a dire economic climate, and sold its 2009 car, almost fully developed, to Ross Brawn, who famously took it and Jenson Button to the world title on a shoestring budget.
Now Honda, encouraged by the move to more eco-friendly 1.6-litre turbo engines, is back and project manager Yasuhisa Arai - who admits there is an element of unfinished business in his motivation - says its prime target is to match the Mercedes engine, which has dominated the first season of 1.6-litre turbos in Formula One, for both power and reliability.
BENCH TESTS
"Development of the power unit is entering its prime phase at our R&D facility in Sakura, near Tochigi in Japan, where we transferred our motorsport development earlier this year," he said.
"In addition to running simulations, we have moved on to the next stage where we run full-fledged bench tests of the engine with the turbocharger and energy recovery systems connected.
"In the meantime, our racing operation base in Milton Keynes is now fully operational, and the whole team is concentrating on this development, getting ready for the start of the 2015 Formula One season with the first test session at Jerez in six months time.”
For the first two years at least, he said, McLaren would be the only team using the Honda F1 engine; if the results were good enough that other teams came asking for them, Honda could supply after 2016 - i.e. for the 2017 season - but there were no plans at present to build customer engines.