Tanabe cautiously optimistic despite Friday full of problems

It was certainly not the best Friday that Red Bull and Honda could have wished for in Imola. Of the four drivers, Pierre Gasly was the only one who managed to complete both practice sessions without any problems. Nevertheless Toyoharu Tanabe is looking forward to the rest of the weekend with a positive feeling.

Tanabe, in his recap of the Honda Racing website race, he can't help but start talking about the various problems. "We lost some track time with both teams. Perez was sixth, despite losing time with a collision in FP1. Verstappen did just 5 laps this afternoon, before suffering a driveshaft failure", said Tanabe.

Already three Honda's with new parts

Those problems were not related to the Honda powerplant, but in Tsunoda's case they were. "We spotted something on the electrical data from Tsunoda’s car, so we checked the PU and chassis and opted to change some components". After Gasly and Perez, Tsunoda is already the third Honda driver where parts of the power unit have been replaced as a precaution this season.

Yet Tanabe, buoyed in part by Gasly's solid performance, remains moderately positive about the chances this weekend. "Overall therefore, it was not too bad a start to the weekend. We still gathered a respectable amount of data which we can now analyse as we work on optimising our PU for tomorrow’s qualifying and Sunday’s race."