Honda is amazed by Ferrari and Mercedes problems: "Engine problems not expected"

Mercedes and Ferrari experienced engine problems during the Belgium Grand Prix weekend. As a result, Honda boss Toyoharu Tanabe is surprised by the failures as he didn't expect such problems to occur in rival engines. 

During qualifying, Robert Kubica's engine went up in the plume of smoke. Sergio Perez experienced an issue on Friday as the new-spec Mercedes engines made a stuttering start in the customer cars. Meanwhile, Antonio Giovinazzi's engine also failed. 

"I am surprised. Firstly because of the reliability, they have shown in the past and also this year. We can only use three engines per season, so they have to complete more than 5,000 kilometers. They have a lot of experience on how to reach that distance and the reliability is good because of the test bench. The new spec has, of course, passed those endurance tests," Tanabe said in a conversation with Motorsport.com. 

"They have been supplying two or three teams for many years, they know how to check the quality, how to check everything before it is shipped (to the races)."