Gasly sees potential in Honda powered RB15

  • Published on 26 Feb 2019 20:36
  • 4
  • By: Fergal Walsh

Red Bull Racing driver Pierre Gasly drove the most laps on the Barcelona circuit on Tuesday, setting 136 laps. At the end of the day, his fastest time was only 0.006 seconds behind that of Lando Norris.

Gasly's focus during the first day of test two was firmly on the reliability of the new Honda engine. 

"We are trying to test the reliability of the car", the Frenchman told GPToday in Barcelona. "We have several new parts and we want to know how they work. For us, it is important to drive as many miles as possible to test reliability.

Gasly said he has no idea if Red Bull has made a winning car for him: "I don't know. It will also depend on the performance of all the other teams. At the moment there is still a lot of work to do. I think we should focus on that first.

"I'm glad I was able to do a lot of laps today. I think there is potential in this car, but we have to put all the pieces together and fit them together. The car itself feels very good, but it still is a pre-season test. You shouldn't draw any conclusions from that. I know that other teams hide things. We just have to look at our own programme and focus on it," he said. 

The Frenchman admitted that he had not yet made full use of all the horsepower: "We try to go faster every day. I haven't driven at full power yet. We also need to improve in several areas. It will be close. 

"I'm not looking at other teams," he said when asked about the problems of Mercedes and Ferrari. "I only look at our own productivity. It's positive that we have driven many laps. We still have three days to go and we will be doing some longer racing simulations in the coming days. The two shorter 'long runs' I did today felt good in any case", he concluded.

Replies (4)

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  • Does anyone know what the engine regulation for testing is? Does the engine they are using the two weeks of testing included in their 3 engine limit for the season, or does that start with the first race.

    • + 0
    • Feb 26 2019 - 22:53
    • boudy

      Posts: 1,168

      No engine limit diring tests. I remember that Honda went through a whole bunch when thwy started with McLaren. Not sure what Honda did this year but I have seen an side comment of there being 4 new engines ready for rbr in Barcelona this year.

      • + 0
      • Feb 27 2019 - 04:51
    • boudy

      Posts: 1,168

      So the engine limit is exclusive any tests.

      • + 0
      • Feb 27 2019 - 04:53
    • Thanks. Hadn't seen that anywhere.

      • + 0
      • Feb 27 2019 - 21:05

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