Tanabe: 'Teams will reconsider their strategies after today'

Despite suggestions from the Mercedes camp that Honda would have a more powerful engine this season, the Japanese manufacturer is once again proving difficult on the fast Monza circuit. Here the engine manufacturers can no longer hide and Mercedes has the obvious advantage.

In that respect the result of the sprint race was not too bad for Honda boss Toyoharu Tanabe. In his review he calls the fact that Verstappen will start from pole tomorrow a 'great result'.

The fun was somewhat dampened by the performance of the other Honda drivers. Perez lost places at the start, Gasly crashed and Tsunoda crashed into Kubica. Tanabe therefore calls it a day of ups and downs.

Tomorrow's race is going to be interesting either way, according to him. "After an 18 lap race today, we now have 53 tomorrow and, with a free choice of tyre compound for the start, the teams will be reconsidering their strategies in the light of the data provided from this afternoon’s race", the Japanese said.