Honda ambitious: 'We are still not number one'

Red Bull Racing is having a very strong season. The Austrian team last won the world championship with Sebastian Vettel in 2013, but this season they finally have a chance to win it again with Max Verstappen. Honda's performance plays a big role in this.

Verstappen didn't have it easy at the start of his Red Bull tenure. Although he made some mistakes due to his youth, he was also regularly sidelined with engine problems. The Austrians, therefore, decided to switch to Honda, after which Verstappen's performance steadily improved.

Expectations from Honda

After the current season, however, Honda is leaving Formula 1. Toyoharu Tanabe doesn't yet dare to say whether Red Bull will have the best engine then. "We keep analysing our position, compared to the other PU manufacturers," Tanabe says at the press conference. "If you have a good car with less downforce, sometimes you see a good engine power performance, so it’s a little bit difficult to judge."

Tanabe, however, has a clear goal in mind. "We are still not number one so as I said, we cannot improve the pure performance, like the IC performance, then we are working on very hard how to use the PU efficiently at the track, so we want to use current hardware more efficiently with team engineers."