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Honda: We have investigated and resolved the issue

Honda: "We have investigated and resolved the issue"

16-04-2021 14:04 Last update: 16:00
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GPblog.com

Honda has received a lot of praise early this year. The Japanese have managed to build an engine that is extremely powerful, but during the opening weekend in Bahrain, there were also some problems. Sergio Perez and Pierre Gasly replaced some parts and so Toyoharu Tanabe went in search of the cause of the reliability problem.

Gasly had a couple of engine components replaced after Friday's session as a precaution, and Perez had the same problem a day later. The Mexican Red Bull Racing driver also stalled during the warm-up lap on Sunday. So something seems to be wrong at Honda.

"Perez had an electrical problem. We have investigated and solved the issue," Tanabe told AS-Web."We will use the same parts we used in the race. As for the Energy Store, Gasly's car had some parts that were still good and some that were not good, so that's why we lost a component."

Honda must get to work

According to Honda's top man, the problems are not just related to cooling. "It was a bit more complicated than that and we were worried about reliability, so we changed the ICE settings and ended up driving the race with a bit less power. We are not allowed to change the settings during the race, but the FIA approved the change after the race because it had to do with reliability," Tanabe said.

Honda has worked hard over the past three weeks to improve reliability, but it is still not perfect. Yuki Tsunoda had to have the same parts replaced in Imola as colleagues Perez and Gasly. Max Verstappen also stopped during the second free practice at the Italian circuit. So the problems are not solved yet. Work to do!