Honda is expecting a more representative picture of the relative performance of the engine makers to emerge in Bahrain this weekend.
In Australia, the speed traps put the Japanese manufacturer very much on par with Mercedes & Ferrari, while Max Verstappen’s pass on Sebastian Vettel in the race was the most visual indication of their potential.
That being said, Honda technical director Toyoharu Tanabe believes there was still a “clear performance gap” which proves the work that lies ahead.
“It was good to finish third in the season opener in Australia, our first podium finish since 2008,” he said initially to Autosport.
“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.”
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And looking ahead to Bahrain, the Honda chief believes the power difference will be more obvious because of the greater emphasis on top speed.
“The Sakhir circuit is more representative of a normal permanent circuit, after the unusual Albert Park track which is more of a stop-go street circuit,” he explained.
“The 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.”
That being said: “Obviously, Bahrain holds good memories for us, as it was here last year that [Pierre] Gasly and Toro Rosso got their best result of the year, finishing fourth,” Tanabe added.
“We will be working hard to continue the positive trend we saw in Australia, in the hope of creating more good memories here.”
