Yusuke Hasegawa admitted it was disappointing to see Fernando Alonso and Jenson Button struggling during qualifying for the Japanese Grand Prix, with the Spaniard fifteenth and the Briton seventeenth.
The Head of F1 Project and Executive Chief Engineer of Honda pinpointed a lack of balance between the chassis and power unit as a problem that affected the running for both McLaren drivers on Saturday, although the deficit to those who made it through to Q3 was not as big as they were expecting it to be.
Hasegawa insists everything is still being done to push for better results, and he is hoping that both drivers make progress from their grid positions on Sunday at Suzuka.
“Today’s qualifying result was disappointing, with Fernando P15 and Jenson P17,” admitted Hasegawa. “Suzuka Circuit is a very difficult track to pull out a great lap unless both the chassis and power unit were perfectly well-balanced, so I think we were just lacking that as a team today to pull off a Q3 lap.
“However, it was a very tight session and we are not far off in lap-times to the Q3 runners, so we are looking forward to tomorrow’s race strategy and management, and continue to push for better results.”
