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Honda aiming to close 'clear performance gap' to leaders

Published on 28 Mar 2019 11:39
4
By: Fergal Walsh

Honda F1 technical director Toyoharu Tanabe says a large gap in performance still exits between the Japanese manufacturer and Mercedes, who took maximum points from Melbourne.

Honda, who is supplying power units to Red Bull as well as Toro Rosso this year, managed to get a car in between both Ferraris in qualifying, with Max Verstappen ended up in fourth.

In the race, Verstappen worked his way up into third place, securing Honda's first podium finish in the turbo hybrid era.

However Tanabe says that there is still a large gap to bridge to the leading manufacturer, that is perceived to be Mercedes.

"It was good to finish third in the season opener in Australia, our first podium finish since 2008," he said.

"However, we saw a clear performance gap to the winning team both in qualifying and the race, therefore as soon as we returned to our facilities in the UK and Japan, we began a detailed analysis of all the data we gathered from our four cars in Melbourne and continued our PU development work for this weekend and further races."

Up until Verstappen's third-place finish in Melbourne, Pierre Gasly's P4 result in Bahrain was Honda's best finish since it returned to the sport in 2015.

This time around, Honda is hoping the circuit will offer a better picture of the potential of its power unit for the season ahead.

"We now head to Bahrain and the Sakhir circuit, which is more representative of a normal permanent circuit, after the unusual Albert Park track which is more of a stop-go street circuit.

"The Sakhir track also has quite a long straight, which means that, by the end of the weekend, we should have a better idea of the ability and potential of both our car-PU packages.

"Obviously, Bahrain holds good memories for us, as it was here last year that Gasly and Toro Rosso got their best result of the year, finishing fourth.

"We will be working hard to continue the positive trend we saw in Australia, in the hope of creating more good memories here."

F1 News Honda

Replies (4)

Ram Samartha

Posts: 1,172
As some of the team bosses are fond of saying, this is where they're going to drop their trousers and show what they got, after coming up short being splashed with cold water down in Oz, otherwise known as what Marko calls the "Melbourne effect."
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- Mar 28 2019 - 14:29
- calle.itw
  
  Posts: 8,527
  Considering this it Tanabe saying it, and him and Hasegawa are more or less the blokes behind the progress we saw from 2018 and onwards, I trust his views. He has so far been able to talk the talk, cautious but optimistic and with emphasis on them not affording a break, and actually also walking on that walk, and expanding their F1 division and hiring further outside help. Time will tell, but I don't think he is another Arai.
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  Mar 28 2019 - 18:17
- Ram Samartha
  
  Posts: 1,172
  I think Honda should be able to pull it together. They are masters at engine making for decades, but I tell ya it brought back some bad memories seeing two Honda engines go up in smoke in Indycar qualifying last weekend.
  + 0
  
  Mar 29 2019 - 01:01
- calle.itw
  
  Posts: 8,527
  Yeah, no idea what they are like in Indy, since I don't really watch it all that much, but generally speaking they tend to come good. It's been slow in F1, but they've recovered from a bad place in Super GT to winning multiple races last year. They are, funny enough, very similar to Shonen Jump characters (Shonen is a Japanese manga publisher) in their tendency of rising up after falling down.
  + 0
  
  Mar 29 2019 - 06:18