This week's Grapevine brings you information fresh from the paddock on: Summer Break? Honda Revival

Summer Break?

The three-week gap between the German and Hungarian Grands Prix is officially intended as a break for the Formula One circus, giving everyone a chance to pause for breath before the last few races of the season. However, whilst the drivers and race teams are taking a well earned rest, things are not so quiet back at the factories.

Alex Yoong's failure to qualify in Hockenheim has been something of a disappointment for Minardi. His pace has hardly been anything to write home about all season, with Paul Stoddart claiming after Silverstone that Yoong was expected to struggle for two races this season. However, with tenth place in the Constructors' Championship ­ and more to the point, the ten million or so pounds that it brings with it ­ at stake, staying ahead of Toyota in the standings is vital to the team's survival.

As it stands, Stoddart believes Yoong has the ability to stay consistently within a second of his teammate; but as the season goes on, his continued inability to close the gap is leading to a loss of self-belief, which in turn sees the Malaysian overdrive the car when he is pushing, or sitting too far off the limit otherwise. Either way, the result adds up over a lap. Accordingly, the choice open to the team is either to drop Yoong to the test driver role until his confidence returns (letting him go altogether would be expensive), or to persevere, and hope Toyota can't do anything about it. Potential replacements being considered include Fernando Alonso, if Renault will release him, Luca Badoer and Jos Verstappen.

Over at Leafield, if might appear that Arrows have already spent a month on holiday, judging by their half hearted attendance at the last three events. The current belief is that the team are being sold as a going concern, and can expect to see the next three weeks disappear under due diligence considerations and getting back up to speed under new management.

The Jaguar team are also busy, trying to work out why their new car was able to show well in France, but looking like its old self in Germany. They know that the ultra smooth surface at Magny Cours is a factor, but Hockenheim was hardly full of pot-holes. The interaction between the suspension members and the aerodynamics is being investigated; however, the bottom line seems to be the sensitivity of the floor to changes in pitch; configuring the car's suspension softly enough to ride bumps at all well allows it to pitch under braking. Setting up the car to be relatively balanced under braking leads to an imbalance from the apex when the power comes back on, and front grip is inadequate. With Ford spending the next month planning their future in motorsport, it's widely believed that the team need answers by the US Grand Prix in September, or they'll not feature at all.

All of the grid is considering their approach for next season; however, BAR is also considering the question of how to field a third car next year. Bernie Ecclestone has suggested that, in the event of losing Arrows or Minardi during the off season, teams might be permitted to run a third car. Not only would this solve the current driver dilemma of how to keep both Panis and Villeneuve to run alongside Button, but there would be a tremendous opportunity to give value for money to BAT, even before considering bringing new sponsors on board. On the downside, it means committing Honda to produce the engines, the resources to build the extra components, and bringing in personnel to run the assembled car and driver. Feasibility needs to be established unequivocally by the end of the month, in order for Honda to plan around the engine supply.

Ferrari, of course, are also working hard on next year's car. News that strikes fear into other teams came from Ross Brawn, who has let slip that it, too, could miss the start of the season, as the emphasises remains on pushing the limits of performance, without compromising reliability. Given the success of the F2002, it is hard to imagine next year's car, based on the same philosophy, being anything other than competitive.

Honda Revival

One of the surprises at Hockenheim was the jump in form of BAR and Jordan, as they finally had an engine from Honda that lived up to the company's promises. That said, on the development plan Honda put forward this time last year, the current unit should have been delivered in May. Getting away from the disappointments to date, the manufacturer considers their latest engine is arguably on a par with the Mercedes unit (though McLaren might not agree), estimating themselves down about 30bhp against Ferrari and BMW's 875bhp.

Projecting forwards, Honda believe that Ferrari and BMW will be pushing the 900bhp mark in qualifying by the end of the season, and between 900 and 925 bhp to race with at the start of next season, depending on what their 2003 units specifically emphasise when evolving power, mass reduction and fuel consumption.

It comes as no surprised to discover that the gap is considered too wide to close this year; however, this engine still has room for making improvements, and these are being pursued rigourously. Improvements in manufacturing tolerances are yielding qualifying engines that have an extra 25bhp (admittedly, with some risk of expiring on track), and there is a point release targeted for racing at the US GP, though it should be available for qualifying before then depending on reliability.

For 2004, with the new rules requiring longer lived engines, a complete redesign is on the cards. Accordingly there are two schools of thought being evaluated for 2003. The cheaper is to redesign the current unit around the existing block; this would offer little improvement to mass or packaging, but it would offer the teams a known unit to base their car design on, and there is good development potential available. The alternative is to build a completely new engine ­ in preparation for which, Honda have had a brace of research teams preparing pilots all season. Although considerably more expensive, this course offers the best development potential ­ but also the biggest likelihood of reliability issues.

The target for this season is to move ahead of Mercedes in the power stakes. Achieving this makes it appear feasible to target closing down the leading units through next season, offering the drivers a real chance to compete for podiums, even if the overall package is not as complete as those of the competition.