Hunter-Reay and Rahal happy with Honda Twin-Turbo

Ryan Hunter-Reay admits he had concerns about his Andretti Autosport team's off-season switch from Chevrolet to Honda power for the upcoming IndyCar season. But he says that he is now optimistic about the Japanese manufacturer's efforts to master its twin-turbo unit.

Honda will join rival Chevrolet in using a twin-turbo layout for its V6 unit after having raced a single-turbo configuration for the past two years.

Although the change was mandated by IndyCar, Honda's plans to switch to a twin turbo for 2014 had been in the works for some time. Hunter-Reay, who won the 2012 championship with Chevrolet power, believes Honda has some lost ground to make up, but says that it is bridging the gap.

"Sure," said Hunter-Reay to RACER when asked about possible concerns about Honda. "There's a lot of work to do. But going to twin turbo … I think Honda has to catch up to what Chevy has been used to for the past two years."

"The good thing is we know what we had. We do have a benchmark. We know where Chevy is probably making progress in the off-season," he added. "We have an idea of where we need to be. We're working on the drivability side of it with Honda, delivering that power. With the single turbo, I can't believe how well-sorted they had it.

"I drove the single turbo, jumped in the twin, now we're closing that gap."

"My first impression was that I was surprised that we were as competitive [with the single turbo]," Graham Rahal told RACER. "The twin turbo has far more boost response, better off the corners, not a lot of boost lag that we spent the last couple years trying to overcome.

"I think it should be a huge performance [gain]. I don't think we will see it on a road course, but at Indy – everybody knows how we struggled there. I think that's where we should see the biggest performance gain."