Honda not allowed to tweak its engine upgrade in Japan

Before the start of the Japanese Grand Prix on Sunday, Honda were forced to revert back to their previous engine settings, even though their request to make a change was approved by the FIA.

It requested to tweak the engine settings on Pierre Gasly's car during parc ferme conditions, which was supposed to address the oscillations that were happening when shifting up through the gears in its most recent engine upgrade.

The team had its request approved by the FIA's technical delegate, Jo Bauer. However, it is believed that they did not carry out the change exactly as it was requested, so it was informed on the grid that the Japanese manufacturer needed to switch back.

There has been no statement from the FIA, but Honda said: "We submitted the parc ferme change request to the FIA. They approved it, that's why they issued the document."

"I need to find out exactly why they changed their decision; what was done by someone. We were surprised, because they said yes. Suddenly, on the grid, they said no. We need to respect the FIA's decision, so we didn't use it."

Gasly added: “In quali I had some calibration issues so I didn’t have the best setting and was hurting the reliability, was hurting the power, but also the reliability for the race."

“It was a pretty big concern ahead of the race so we ask them [the FIA] if we could change it. Then they first accepted and then after they reverted. I was backwards [to] qualifying’s setting which was a bit down on power and not ideal for driveability as well."

“20 laps to the end I could feel lot of vibration and lot of blisters on the rear which just got worse and worse, and the last 10 laps I could not even see on the straight it was vibrating so much.”