Honda to revise packaging

04/03/2019
NEWS STORY

With neither of its customer teams suffering significant issues in Barcelona, Honda was entitled to leave the Spanish track feeling pleased with itself.

In total, Red Bull and Toro Rosso completed 1,768 laps (5,113 miles) and it would have been more had it not been for Pierre Gasly's crash on Thursday which subsequently limited Max Verstappen's running on Friday.

Nonetheless, the Japanese manufacturer left Barcelona having completed 115% more test miles than in 2018, though it only supplied one team last year and running was limited due to the weather.

While there were no major issues in Spain, Honda's technical director, Toyoharu Tanabe, has admitted to being concerned at the packaging being a little too aggressive and as a consequence the units will be revised in time for the season opener in Australia.

"We don't have a serious problem with the current installation, but we found some issues because of the tight packaging," he said, according to Motorsport.com. "The shape was a little bit too aggressive, so we need to make it a little bit different.

"It's not a big concern," he added.

While some changes were made over the course of the test, Tanabe says that a more permanent fix will be introduced before Melbourne.

"So far, it's not serious," he insisted. "It means we can be ready for the first race, with the items we have issues here."

Asked if he is happy with the apparent performance improvement, Tanabe replied: "Never happy, actually!

"Of course we have a target. And a target through the year as well. We are not so confident with the current achievement. Still there are a lot of areas we need to work on to catch up to the top competitors.

"We reviewed not 100% but almost every single part, and then applied slight modifications for the weight, or reliability," he added. "On the internal combustion engine side, we targeted more efficiency in the combustion era. We will try to gradually improve it."

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Published: 04/03/2019
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