12:09 – Honda finished in Spain for the fifth consecutive race with a car on the podium, but technical director Toyoharu Tanabe is not completely satisfied. He believes that the engine supplier is still a little short compared to the closest competitors of Red Bull Racing and AlphaTauri.
Max Verstappen has already been on the podium during the previous four Grands Prix, culminating in the victory in the 70th Anniversary Grand Prix. A repeat of that success proved impossible at the Circuit de Barcelona-Catalunya, but with a second place the Red Bull Racing driver managed to maximize. “Red Bull finished in second place with Max, scoring the fifth consecutive podium for themselves and Honda. That’s a positive result,” Tanabe said after the race.
Alexander Albon and Pierre Gasly also scored points in Spain with their Honda power source. Daniil Kvyat was the exception in that respect, as the AlphaTauri driver finished twelfth. Still, Tanabe has the feeling that Honda’s power units are not yet performing as people would like to see in Japan. “Max and Pierre got the most out of the car today, but we still feel strongly that we need to improve our performance to match that of the closest competition of both teams.”
For the drivers and teams, there is now a week with relative rest, because there will be no racing next weekend. That gives Honda the time to take a look at the data collected in the past races. “The second triple header of the season is now over and we have a week of rest where we will work hard, study the data from the past six races and try to get better results in the coming races,” said Tanabe .
