Honda has suffered a blow ahead of the Canadian Grand Prix with the news that its new engine will not be ready in time for Sunday's race.

The Japanese car giants were due to introduce a newly developed engine for Sunday's Formula One meeting in Montreal.

The layout of the Canadian course, named after the late Gilles Villeneuve, favours powerful engines and would be an ideal track for Honda to unleash an upgraded machine.

But race and test team manager Shuhei Nakamoto said that after tests of the 'next step engine' in France and Britain last week, Honda have decided to carry out further testing before introducing it.

Increased performance

Nakamoto said: "We will race in Canada with a further developed engine with increased performance based on the engine used for qualifying in Austria.

"We will continue with the development programme over the next couple of races and are optimistic for increased performance."

Honda provides engines to Jordan and British American Racing (BAR), but has struggled to make its engine competitive since it re-entered F1 in 2000.

The latter team have yet to score a point after seven races this year but will be running a car with modified aerodynamics and a revised gearbox in Canada.