The FIA have reversed their decision to allow in-season engine development for McLaren’s new engine partner, Honda.

The 2015 rules for engine homologation were left open after Ferrari’s James Allison pointed out that nowhere in the 2015 rules does it state that teams have to submit their homologated engines for the 2015 season. The deadline for the teams last year was 28 February 2014. The FIA conceded that the rules were open to interpretation and allowed engine manufacturers, namely Mercedes, Renault and Ferrari, to develop their engines up to 32 development tokens.

Honda were left out the equation as the FIA felt that since all teams had to homologate their engines last year, its only fair for Honda to do the same this year despite it not stating this anywhere in the rules.

As to be expected, Honda were not pleased with the decision and met with the FIA this past week. The result of the meeting was that Honda are now allowed to develop their engine during the season but with a few caveats.

Honda will be able to develop their engine calculated by the average number of unused tokens by the other manufacturers before the first race of the season on 16 March 2015.

It is unclear how many tokens Honda will have but it is believed that they will have a considerable amount to develop their engine throughout the season.