Honda denied permission to tweak engine upgrade at Suzuka

Honda has revealed that they were denied permission to tweak their engine upgrade they brought to their home race in Japan. The Japanese manufacturer brought a power unit upgrade that was apparently worth up to half a second but wanted to make last minute changes to the engine.

An initial request lodged by the team to tweak engine settings on Pierre Gasly's car after qualifying that would have fixed engine oscillations the Frenchman had been experiencing on upshifts had been approved by FIA technical delegate Jo Bauer.

Unfortunately for Honda, the request was then reversed after an apparent change being made that was not agreed upon with the FIA, informing the team on the grid that they had to reverse the change or face likely disqualification.

"We submitted the parc ferme change request to the FIA. They approved it, that's why they issued the document." Honda representitives said after the race.

"I need to find out exactly why they changed their decision; what was done by someone. We were surprised, because they said yes. Suddenly, on the grid, they said no. We need to respect the FIA's decision, so we didn't use it."

Gasly himself confirmed the request and the rollback on settings which he believes cost him performance in the race.

“In quali I had some calibration issues so I didn’t have the best setting and was hurting the reliability, was hurting the power, but also the reliability for the race.

“It was a pretty big concern ahead of the race so we ask them (FIA) if we could change it. Then they first accepted and then after they reverted. I was backwards (to) qualifying’s setting which was a bit down on power and not ideal for driveability as well.

“20 laps to the end I could feel lot of vibration and lot of blisters on the rear which just got worse and worse, and the last 10 laps I could not even see on the straight it was vibrating so much.”