Honda believes its new F1 ERS is on Mercedes' level

The ERS was identified as McLaren-Honda's chief weakness in 2015, when it failed to qualify in the top 10 for any race and finished a lowly ninth in the F1 constructors' championship.

Much of Honda's winter engine development was focused on how to better recover energy from the exhaust, and it introduced another update to the turbo for the recent Canadian Grand Prix to further enhance ERS performance.

McLaren has made Q3 at three of the last four races and is already three points away from matching its 2015 total after just eight grands prix in 2016.

"From an energy recovery system point of view, we have already achieved our target, which is already on Mercedes level," Honda F1 chief Yusuke Hasagawa said.

"Our recovery system's performance is not very different to the top teams, I am very confident about that.

"The energy recovery has already doubled from last year and is achieving at the top level.

"I can't tell if it is better than others, but it's reasonable to say it's a very even area.

"It is incredible we have achieved that in two to three years, where others have taken seven to eight years."

HONDA PLEDGES IN-SEASON UPDATE

Honda has yet to spend any development tokens on an in-season combustion update in 2016, unlike its rivals.

It has 12 remaining to use before the end of the season, and Hasegawa said Honda would "definitely" introduce performance updates to its ICE [internal combustion engine] before the end of the current campaign.

"There is always some room to improve, but definitely we need to concentrate more on the internal combustion engine performance," Hasegawa added.

"We don't have enough performance in an update [yet] so we can't introduce it.

"In some of the individual experimental tests we see some of the benefits, but we can't prove it as a complete engine."

"We don't have enough time to change everything - we don't have enough tokens - so we will just introduce some of the additive parts."

McLaren has achieved two top-six finishes with Fernando Alonso already this season, and Hasegawa believes the team should target challenging for a podium before the end of the year, on the right circuit.

When asked if there were any particular targets in terms of results before the end of the season that would make Honda happy, Hasegawa replied: "One is obviously to get better performance, and [the other] to challenge for a podium - to have that chance."