Honda power unit “progressing smoothly” and in “phase of fine tuning”

Honda Racing F1 technical director Toyoharu Tanabe has said that they are in the “phase of fine tuning” ahead of the opening race in Melbourne after “progressing smoothly” on their power unit.

Honda made great steps in their partnership with Red Bull last year as they helped Max Verstappen to wins in Austria, Germany and Brazil, as well as proving enough of a challenge to Mercedes and Ferrari.
 
The power unit, which was plagued with issues during their partnership with McLaren, has yet to suffer any issues during testing and Tanabe says they are now focusing their attention for Melbourne.
 
“After last week’s work here in Barcelona, we analysed all the data from both teams and so we started this second test reflecting what we learned from that,” he said.
 
“Over these three days, we are continuing with function checks, as well as working on optimising the settings.
 
“We are now in a phase of fine tuning, in preparation for the season opener in Melbourne.”
 
Despite the power unit seemingly without any problems Alex Albon’s time in the RB16 was cut short in the morning dues to suspension failure, while Pierre Gasly’s Alpha Tauri AT01 suffered a loose pipe.
 
“Both our cars had to spend a while in the garage this morning and in the afternoon we focused on recovering from that delay,” Tanabe added
 
“Despite that, everything seems to be progressing smoothly on the PU front.”