Honda F1 chief Yasuhisa Arai refuses to apologise for performance

Button and Alonso again failed to make it out of Q1 at Monza, with Button's best lap time 2.6s behind Italian Grand Prix polesitter Lewis Hamilton in his Mercedes.

On Saturday evening Arai was asked if he had apologised to Button and Alonso for the poor performance of the power unit, and whether he should perhaps resign.

"I always speak with both drivers," said Arai.

Pressed on whether he should say sorry, Arai replied: "Why? Why?"

Pointed out the Honda power unit was "a bad one" and "costing two world champion drivers a part of their career", Arai said: "I don't answer."

Arai was also asked whether he was embarrassed by the lack of results and direction.

"We are [heading in] a good direction, but you know the results are not so good," he said.

"But I hope to do our best for the remainder of the season.

"We put in a lot of effort to get more horsepower and control for the champion drivers, but unfortunately with ICE [combustion engine] horsepower and MGU-K deployment, this circuit is very difficult for our power unit

Put to Arai that maybe the car was also partly to blame, and not just the engine, he said: "We are one team, we do our best as McLaren-Honda.

"I know the weak point of the power unit, and McLaren do their best to make a good car."

Arai claimed work is under way to correct the issues for next season.

"We already found out what the weak point of our power unit is so we have already started next season's development," he added.

"I could not say anything about future tokens this season, but our weak point is the deployment which our drivers know.

"Of course we want to change for next year and make small gains with the deployment for every race."