Gasly reveals Honda-engine "a couple of tenths" quicker than in Japan!

Toro Rosso driver Pierre Gasly has revealed that there’s still more to come from the Honda engine-upgrade that was on show in Japan, with the Frenchman claiming that there the engine is several tenths quicker with a few tweaks.

Gasly and teammate Brendon Hartley qualified in P7 and P6 respectively, which was the best qualifying performance from Toro Rosso all season, but couldn’t convert this into any points at Honda’s home race. Gasly hung onto P10 until the final stages of the race, but Renault’s Carlos Sainz eventually passed the 22-year-old with a sweeping move, leaving Toro Rosso empty-handed.

“I didn’t have the best calibrations,” Gasly told RaceFans.

“It was hurting the power but also the reliability for the race so it was a really big concern for the race.

“We asked if we could change it and first they accepted then they reverted so I was back with yesterday’s setting which was a bit down on power and not the best for drive-ability as well.”

This means that Honda still haven’t unlocked the potential of this new spec of their power-unit, which is said to be more powerful than Renault’s engine. That’s a good sign if you’re Red Bull.

“It’s new so we still need to find out how everything works.

“They introduced it pretty early, ideally they would have liked to have more time on the dyno to test it.”

When asked how fast the full upgrade will be exactly, Gasly was pretty bold in his prediction.

“We are talking about a couple of tenths.

“If we had this then probably it would have put me a bit closer to Romain [Grosjean] and more in the fight. 

“So I think it’s looking really good - still a few things to improve but as a first step, after discovering and exploring a bit the way the engine works I think there is some good potential in there.”