Honda Formula 1 technical director Toyoharu Tanabe has described their start to 2019 as “reasonable” despite some strong signals.
The Japanese manufacturer began their new partnership with Red Bull on a very high note as Max Verstappen finished third in Australia, Honda’s first podium since 2008.
Also on reliability, the power unit has run problem-free (until today), with only Mercedes able to make the same boast coming into this weekend’s race in China.
“So far we have started this season with reasonable performance and reasonable results,” Tanabe stated in the press conference on Friday.
“But reasonable doesn’t mean fantastic, and we see clearly there is still a big gap to the top [teams] and us.
“We really need to push to improve our performance, to compete [against] our competitors. We understand it is not easy to improve the performance immediately, but we’ll keep pushing.”
As mentioned though, during practice, Daniil Kvyat lost running in the Toro Rosso due to an engine change which was the first needed this season.
“A tricky first day in China, as we spotted an irregularity on the data from Daniil’s car and decided to change the PU before FP2,” the Honda chief explained.
“We will now send the original PU back to Sakura for further investigation and also we will analyse the data here at the track.”
Kvyat though later said the change was only “precautionary”.
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Back in the press conference though, Tanabe was asked about the impact supplying both Red Bull teams had had on Honda.
“We can get double the data from two teams compared to one, and then there are some differences in the team’s philosophy, and way of working,” he explained.
“Not only twice, but more than twice we can receive information, and we have four different drivers with different characteristics of driving.
“It’s very hard to tell, but two teams are definitely helping our development.”