Honda to Investigate MGU-H Issue at Sakura Factory

After a strong winter testing, the Toro Rosso-Honda partnership got off an eerily similar start.

Honda is set to investigate the MGU-H failure that Pierre Gasly suffered at their Sakura base in Japan to analyse what caused the Frenchman to have to retire from the Australian Grand Prix.

Gasly had to retire his car on lap 16 of the race after the car suffered a complete loss of power.

Speaking to RACER, Honda F1 technical director Toyoharu Tanabe told RACER, "We saw some unusual data on the telemetry which is related to the MGU-H.

"So we stopped the car and now we will investigate the details of the data and also the part itself and think about what we can do for the next race.

"We're not sure if the part itself is badly damaged. We need to investigate to see if it can be used again.

"During pre-season, we had no trouble in that area, so this is the first time. So during the off-season, we evaluated mileage for the three power units for this season.

"It wasn't perfect mileage because using three power units means more than 5000 kilometres.

"From the mileage we've accumulated we'd had no problem so far, which means we didn't expect trouble or any unusual data on the telemetry at the first race event."

Gasly had qualified P20 for the race and hadn't made much progress from his starting position while teammate Brendan Hartley finished last of the classified drivers and was the only one to be put down a lap.

"It wasn’t a great start to the season for me," said Gasly.

"After Turn 12 the engine just switched off, it came back on again but I was really slow and I couldn’t upshift.

"For sure I’m not going to lie it’s a pain in the ass to have it. But that’s how it is and everyone will try to make it as close as possible for the next races."

The failure was a surprise for the team after a strong pre-season. They now have just over a week to find the cause of the issue before the Bahrain Grand Prix.