Honda gets reward after strong winter: 'Important to see that'

For Honda, qualifying for the Bahrain Grand Prix was a session with mixed feelings. Max Verstappen managed to get pole position for Red Bull Racing and Pierre Gasly with AlphaTauri qualified fifth, but two Honda drivers also crashed out in the second part of qualifying, namely Sergio Perez and Yuki Tsunoda. Still, Toyoharu Tanabe, technical director of Honda, looks back on qualifying with a good feeling.

"Newcomer Perez and Tsunoda attacked on the medium tyre in Q2, but unfortunately they didn't manage to advance to Q3. As a result, we were, unfortunately, unable to finish with four cars in the top ten, but overall it's a good result for us," Tanabe explained at AS-Web. Honda have worked hard in their last year as an engine supplier to get the most out of the engine and they are now seeing that on the track, with both teams managing to hold a lot of speed.

Pole provides more motivation

"I think we are in a good position compared to a year ago. Of course, it's also really nice to start like this, with pole in the opening race of the season. That's a very nice feeling, especially for Honda in their last year. This result will provide a lot of motivation", the Japanese driver expects.

Although Mercedes were the favourites for Red Bull for a long time, they were close in qualifying. "Mercedes never stop and this time we were the fastest. We are making progress and that is important to see". At AlphaTauri, there were still some problems for Gasly on Saturday, which required the replacement of certain parts. "We decided to replace those parts because there were things that were defective. Fortunately there are no problems with the rest of the engine and after the race we will go through all the data," Tanabe concluded.