Toro Rosso driver Pierre Gasly is feeling positive about Honda and what he described as their "big, big" plan for engine development in 2018.

The Japanese manufacturer, who switched to the junior Red Bull team from McLaren for this season, had appeared to make significant gains in testing as the STR13 ran very reliably in Barcelona.

When the action got serious in Australia though, the performance remained lacking, with Brendon Hartley last of the classified finishers and Gasly retiring due to an MGU-H problem in the race.

At the time, the Frenchman admitted it was a "pain in the ass" but, looking forward, is encouraged by what Honda is doing.

"On their side they are pushing flat out because they really want to show everyone they can do proper engines," he was quoted by Autosport. "In terms of the development already we can see some really positive progress.

"We are pushing to have as many upgrades as we can, but of course we know we only have three engines so we need to see exactly when is the best time to bring them."

The performance in Australia could well have knocked some confidence within those at Red Bull, with the senior team watching their results closely as they consider their engine options for 2019.

What is most frustrating for Honda though, Gasly admits, is the goalposts are always shifting.

"It's all going well, but we also need to give them [Honda] time because it's F1 - they are all pushing: Mercedes, Ferrari, Renault, they are all pushing and improving all the time.

"For sure they cannot recover everything in only three or four months, but in terms of medium to long-term collaboration I think they have a big, big plan ahead, and at the moment they are doing the right things and really pushing hard."

What is worrying, however, is the former GP2 champion sees high downforce circuits like Melbourne as Toro Rosso's best chance for results.

"Haas is way too fast; Renault as well - we're fighting with the Williams and Force India," he said. "We know our car is really good in low-speed, so there will be tracks which suit our car a bit better.

"We need to wait and see the other races, but we have potential to fight."

Sebastian Vettel hasn't rejected the idea of teaming up with Daniel Ricciardo in the future claiming he "wouldn't mind" racing alongside the Australian.

The pair had contrasting fortunes during their season together at Red Bull in 2014 with Ricciardo finishing third in the drivers' championship while the four-time world champion struggled, later agreeing to join Ferrari.

Now, four years on, it is the man from Perth considering his future with seats at Mercedes and the Scuderia both potential options with the latter seemingly getting the approval of arguably the most important voice in the Italian team's decision.

“I think we get along so I wouldn’t mind if we get together again in the future but I don’t know what his plan," he was quoted by Crash.net.

“I think he has a couple of options and I don’t think he needs to rush. I’m sure he’ll find a seat but I don’t know what he’s up to or what he wants. I don’t know how much he’s asking but I’m confident he’ll find a seat.”

Ricciardo himself has previously indicated he would prefer a move to Mercedes due to a desire to challenge himself against Lewis Hamilton and Valtteri Bottas' poor start to the new season last weekend in Australia has put more pressure on the Finn.

However, now the possibility of the 28-year-old replacing his fellow Kimi Raikkonen at Ferrari is being raised by one of his sponsors, Aarnio Wihuri.

"I think Raikkonen's time is coming to an end," he said. "Last year we saw that his driving started to become inconsistent. Probably his interest is starting to fade.

"Valtteri's move to Ferrari can still be quite possible," he added. "In the meantime, every F1 driver dreams of driving for Ferrari at some point."

Bottas was believed to be in the running for a seat at Maranello as far back as 2015 before ultimately swapping Williams for Mercedes last year.

Daniel Ricciardo believes Formula 1 needs to consider whether to prioritise single lap performance or better racing with car design rules.

His comments come as the fallout from a largely uneventful Australian GP continues with many criticising the lack of on-track overtakes and difficulty in following another car closely.

In fact, outside the opening lap, just five passes were made at Albert Park and, though this weekend's race in Bahrain will likely be a better barometer, it has already led to some questioning if the current cars have gone too far.

"I feel now with the wide tyres and wide cars, they already take up a lot of space on the track, it's hard to find clean air." the Red Bull driver told Autosport.

"Aerodynamically, they're very strong now. You see the sidepods of the car, there are so many bits. It looks sick, but all it means is the car behind is going to get pretty messed up.

"It's at a point now where at Barcelona, we were going fast," he emphasised. "Turn 2, 3, was full, Turn 9 was full, it's impressive, but the faster we go, the harder it's going to be to overtake and the harder it's going to be to follow closely."

Though visually they may not be as good as the current generation of cars, Ricciardo believes the 2009-2016 era of machines did strike a much better balance between speed and raceability.

"I think narrower cars were great," he said. "It's like motorbikes because they're so narrow there's always room to get past and they lap 30 seconds slower than us.

"I think it proves it's not necessarily about the lap time.

"They (the pre-2017 cars) were slow for our standards, but for a spectator, they don't know necessarily that much different," he added. "But the racing... you could follow, you could pass. As far as overtakes went, I thought 2014 was good."

Also Read:

• Verstappen slams inability to race at "worthless" Australian GP
• Hamilton demands improvements as Mercedes identify Melbourne "bug"

The man F1 has turned to for a solution is the current managing director of motorsport, Ross Brawn who is conducting research to find solutions for implementation in the coming years.

“We need to keep the aerodynamic performance at a high level, but we need to do it in a way that’s more benign and more friendly to the cars around it," he said commenting on his work to SiriusXM.

“There’s almost a force field that exists at the moment, a bubble around each car and the car attacking it can’t get near it because as soon as it gets within 1.5-2.0s of the car in front, it loses so much performance. It can’t get near."

Identifying the areas most impacted by the "force field", Brawn added: “The front wing is for sure one area that is sensitive in both respects, in terms the disturbance it creates, and then the sensitivity to the disturbance of the car in front.

“It’s not the only area. There’s all the furniture and bargeboards you see behind the front wheels that are equally as sensitive and there are areas of the rear floor and rear aerodynamics which are sensitive.”

Lewis Hamilton has called on his Mercedes team to up their game as the Brackley-based team reveals the cause of their Australian GP defeat.

The world champion was comfortably on course to claim the first win of the 2018 Formula 1 season, but a decision by Sebastian Vettel, who had been running third, to stay out longer before pitting paid dividends as a Virtual Safety Car allowed him to change tyres and stay ahead of the Briton.

From then on, the inability to follow a car closely saw Hamilton unable to challenge the Ferrari and have to settle for a disappointing second, later admitting the loss left him in "disbelief".

“The issue isn't really with the race strategy software that we use,” Mercedes trackside engineering director Andrew Shovlin explained in their Pure Pitwall debrief video.

"It was an offline tool that we create these delta lap times with, and we found a bug in that tool that meant that it gave us the wrong number.

"The number that we were calculating was around 15 seconds, and in reality, the number was slightly short of 13 seconds, so that was what created our delta. 

“That is why we thought we were safe. We thought we had a bit of margin and then you saw the result. We dropped out, we were in second place and it is very difficult to overtake and we couldn't get through.”

Despite understanding what went wrong, that hasn't completely satisfied their lead driver, who was also frustrated at the pace with which decisions were being made.

“Communication is something we are obviously going to try and work on,” he said. “I was like ‘Can I fight? can I go?’ and they were taking their time so I was like ‘I am going for it’ and I gave everything in that moment.”

He also revealed part of his thinking behind eventually giving up on a charge at Vettel was the engine restrictions in place for this season.

“I just thought, I couldn’t get him in those other laps, my tyres are going to be worse now, I am driving at 110% and I am risking everything just for that seven points so I probably should just sit back, save my engine and use the life of it for the next ones," he said. 

“That goes against my spirit of racing because I want to race right down to the last line, but the way the sport is set up with fuel saving and all these different things, three engines, you have to think about them and back off." 

Lewis Hamilton has stunned Formula 1 by announcing he will quit the sport after 2018 to take part in Mercedes' new Formula E project, which will see them join from Season 6.

The shocking switch is part of a new two-year deal with the German manufacturer worth around £80m in total, which, despite regular claims of being "close", had dragged on longer than many expected.

Now, the reason is clear as the Briton had a late change in heart with a desire to race in the all-electric series with Mercedes under the guidance of former teammate Nico Rosberg, who will be the team boss.

"I have been #Blessed to achieve so much in F1 these past 11 years and, based on Melbourne, as long as my team learns to do maths, I should become champion for an incredible fifth time," he claimed.

"Now though, my focus is on the next chapter of my life and in order to be famous in Hollywood, I realised I need to follow my vegan instincts and go eco-friendly by switching to Formula E.

"The next generation car looks stunning and with Mercedes, I'm delighted to meet more of the best fans around the world."

Motorsport boss Toto Wolff praised Hamilton's courage to make what is a bold move to Formula E and believes it justifies Mercedes' own decision to enter the category.

"I really can't thank Lewis enough for the incredible work he has put in with us on the F1 side since 2013 and I am so pleased he will join us in our new and exciting venture in Formula E," said the Austrian.

"Lewis, like everyone, understands the need to save the planet and his move will bring great attention to electric vehicles which, despite the big loss to our F1 operation, is worth it for the commercial credit I will receive."

Hamilton's surprise departure at the end of 2018 could free the path for Daniel Ricciardo to move from Red Bull and may well ease some pressure on Valtteri Bottas with the Finn only on a single-year deal with Mercedes.

Almost all of the top teams have chosen the same tyre choices for the second race of the 2018 Formula 1 season in Bahrain next weekend.

Despite claims a more aggressive approach would result in two-stop strategies at most Grands Prix, the Ultrasoft compound proved pretty durable in Australia allowing most to switch to either the Soft or Supersoft at their first and only pit-stops.

With conditions usually hotter and rear tyres much more limited around the stop/ start desert track at Sakhir, the Italian supplier has gone a step harder than Melbourne with their allocation as the Supersoft, Soft and Medium rubber were made available.

Most have largely ignored the two harder tyres, however, with Mercedes, Ferrari, Red Bull and three other teams stocking up with seven sets of the red-striped Supers.

Of the top three teams, only Valtteri Bottas will have five sets of the Soft compound at his disposal with a single Medium while the rest will only have four with an additional set of the hardest tyre brought.

Force India, Renault and Haas have all picked eight sets of the Supersoft while McLaren has gone the most aggressive as the only team to chose nine.

Bahrain was one of only a handful of races where two-stops were needed last year, so it will be interesting to see as, now a full night race, whether the tyres remain a more important factor in 2018.

The full list can be see below:

Renault Sport managing director Cyril Abiteboul is to push for a freeze in development of the current Formula 1 engines after 2019 in preparation for changes set to be introduced in 2021.

Next weekend, an important meeting between the Formula One Group, FIA and teams is to take place with the prior unveiling their updated blueprint for the sport in three years time, including engines and financial rules.

However, the French manufacturer believes changing the current power unit rules will only be fair if the current suppliers are not laden with the additional cost of producing two engines.

"There are two things basically in our key message and our position at Renault," Abiteboul told Autosport.

First, before committing to a regulation, we need to understand the bigger picture, and secondly, we don't see it's acceptable or sustainable to have to work on two engines in parallel at the same time.

"If there was to be a new entrant, which is what we wish, he will have a fantastic advantage in being able to focus on the future and not to have to worry about the present and the customers, and so and so forth," added the French manager.

"I'm just discussing principles which I think are logical, and fair for the next steps."

Many will likely see the detriment a freeze in development of the current engines would cause Renault in the short-term, as they continue to lag behind Mercedes and Ferrari in the pecking order.

Red Bull motorsport advisor Helmut Marko agreed with the Renault chief, however, but called on the FIA to ensure the performance difference between all four engines was within a key figure.

"If new engine rules are coming which we hope should be announced pretty soon then we have to freeze the engines as they are now," the Austrian told Motorsport.com.

"And there should be a rule that every engine has to be within three percent, and that is to be properly fulfilled. Then we can live until 2020. Nobody has to make development on these engines, and that's the way to go."

An angry Lance Stroll claimed last Sunday's Australian GP was about "surviving" for Williams not racing such were the array of issues he was having.

The British team entered the new season with low expectations as they look to figure out a new 2018 car which has a much different approach in terms of design from its predecessor as well as the youngest line-up on the grid.

Something as simple as a plastic bag would scupper teammate Sergey Sirotkin as he retired with brake problems and the Canadian would finish penultimate of the 15 finishers with only Brendon Hartley behind him.

“We’re not racing out there at the moment, we are surviving," the 19-year-old said afterwards.

“The first lap I had a mode problem, for some reason I was in the wrong mode so I had no deployment. I gave a position to [Esteban] Ocon, with a massive de-rate.

“The car wasn’t cooperating the way I wanted it to the balance was all over the place and we also had temperature issues the whole race, managing temperatures. So I had to back off."

Stroll's difficult race came after a decent performance in qualifying when he produced a good final effort to make the second segment in a close battle with Sauber and Toro Rosso.

That meant little, however, with the former European F3 champion admitting Williams knew what was coming.

“The whole weekend we expected issues coming into the race, we knew there’d be a lot of problems," he said.

“Realistically, it’s tough to point out one issue. There are a lot of things to sort out.”

Former Toro Rosso driver Jean-Eric Vergne admits he "laughed" upon hearing that Brendon Hartley had returned to Formula 1 with the junior Red Bull team.

The New Zealander was brought back to replace Carlos Sainz from the US Grand Prix last year and did enough to maintain his seat with the Italian team for 2018, albeit finishing last of the 15 cars to reach the checkered flag last weekend in Australia.

Many had touted the Frenchman, who competed with Toro Rosso from 2012-2014, as another alternative but it was Hartley's performances in the WEC with Porsche which earned him a second chance.

"It makes me laugh that Red Bull called on Hartley given that he's the one they fired to give me his seat in World Series by Renault," Vergne was quoted by F1i.com. "I find this rather amusing!"

After seeing his F1 dream end by the arrival of Max Verstappen, Vergne had a stint with Ferrari but has since found his calling in Formula E, where he leads the Season 4 championship with Techeetah.

"Looking back, I could have handled things differently," he admitted. "I went through a hard 12 months, looking at how I could turn things around.

"I changed a lot of things in the way I approach the sport and I was able to learn from everything that happened.

"Today I don't believe that I can be hurt in Formula E the way I was hurt in F1," he added. "Outside the car I can now see everything with a different eye. As a global driver that's much better."

Though some in F1 have mocked the all-electric series, Vergne credits the opportunity to compete as the "turning point" for his career.

"I was lucky to join Formula E at the right time," he said. "I quickly changed my mentality and my state of mind. Today, I think it's the best thing that can happen to me.

"I think it was the turning point of my career. In any difficult or negative situation, there are positives to draw. You just need to extract them."

Red Bull chiefs have called on the FIA to consider ways of limiting Mercedes' use of the so-called "party mode" on their engine after Lewis Hamilton's commanding performance during the Australian GP weekend.

After a very close battle throughout Saturday's qualifying session, the world champion would turn up the wick on his final lap, improving by almost nine-tenths to claim pole by two-thirds of a second from Kimi Raikkonen.

Despite denials, most believe that sudden massive improvement was predominantly due to the special mode which offers a boost in power but only for short bursts and with it at their disposal, Red Bull motorsport advisor Helmut Marko believes the German manufacturer is unbeatable.

"Mercedes is playing with everyone," said the Austrian. "They can decide with their power modes how far ahead they are but this time they apparently got it wrong and are too far ahead."

Most also believe Hamilton was measuring his pace to the Ferraris during the Grand Prix itself on Sunday, only for a software glitch to allow Sebastian Vettel to get ahead under the Virtual Safety Car and go on to win.

Marko sees a broader problem their engine advantage though and has called on the FIA to act.

"With that engine, no one can beat Mercedes," he claimed. "They're in a different world.

"We have a very good car and that's why we're close but with these engine regulations, it will be the same until 2021.

"Even Ferrari is waking up now," the Red Bull advisor added. "They begin to realise that they will never catch Mercedes with these engines.

"We need engine parity, which was always promised. But these engines are much further apart than three percent apart. So the FIA has to act now."

Team boss at the Anglo-Austrian team, Christian Horner has come up with his own solution to the problem.

"Like you have parc ferme when the cars leave for qualifying, maybe engine modes should be the same from the moment you leave the garage to the end of the Grand Prix," the Briton proposed.