Honda's F1 chief Yasuhisa Arai says McLaren is happy with the development direction taken on the engine in recent weeks.

Honda upgraded its maligned power unit ahead of the Russian Grand Prix to deliver more power from the V6 turbo, though it only ran the new engine in Fernando Alonso's car during FP1. That was a tactical switch to avoid penalties at this weekend's United States Grand Prix, with Honda expecting the upgrade to be more competitive.

Though the energy recovery system (ERS) problems which have plagued its first season with McLaren cannot be properly rectified until the winter, Arai is looking forward to seeing the upgrade in action this weekend in Austin.

"Our goal is to gather more data throughout the remaining races, especially from our new ICE introduced in Sochi two weeks ago," Arai said. "The team has confirmed that the development direction is good, so we will now work on fine tuning it for the remaining four races. It will be interesting to see how this will work together with the updated aero package this weekend."

McLaren boss Eric Boullier is targeting another trouble-free weekend in Austin as the team continues its vital data gathering ahead of the winter.

"We can't be too pleased with taking home two points at the last grand prix in Russia, but it does go some way to validating the relentless hard work being undertaken by every member of the McLaren-Honda team, and the constant strive for better reliability and trouble-free weekends. It also means we go to Austin on the back of an encouraging weekend and hungry for another more positive performance as we near the end of the season."