Pierre Gasly says it would be unfair to lay the blame on Honda for a distinct lack of performance from the Red Bull Toro Rosso Honda team in the past two races, with the STR13 chassis also affecting their pace.
The Frenchman was one of the stars of the Bahrain Grand Prix earlier in the season when he secured an excellent fourth place, his first points of his Formula 1 career and the first top ten finish for Toro Rosso since they partnered with Honda, but since then, the pace has dropped away, and only one further point has been scored for team-mate Brendon Hartley in Azerbaijan.
Gasly says Toro Rosso will need to work hard to understand the shortfalls of chassis in order to return to the kind of form that saw him named driver of the day in Bahrain, but the confusion is that on one track they can be that strong and in subsequent weekends completely off the pace.
“It’s difficult, really, because the last two weekends have been really tough in terms of performance,” Gasly is quoted as saying by Motorsport.com. “We knew that China has one of the longest straights of the season, Baku as well.
“Even on the chassis side we are not so competitive. We seem to be competitive under braking but then all the traction fades. We don’t really have the pace. It’s something that we need to understand.
“I don’t understand how it’s possible to be so competitive, have a car that is that good there balance-wise, also in terms of potential, and then to have such a big delta as soon as you go to another track.”
