Toyoharu Tanabe admitted the Canadian Grand Prix weekend had a mixture of highs and lows, but the pleasing thing was the engine updates brought to the Circuit Gilles Villeneuve appeared to give Red Bull Toro Rosso Honda a notable increase in performance.
Toro Rosso may have left Montreal without adding to their points tally after bad luck played its part in proceedings, but the pace increase gives Tanabe, the Honda F1 Technical Director, some confidence that the Japanese engine manufacturer are heading in the right direction with their power unit.
However, the worries will be the issue that forced Pierre Gasly to ditch his original updated power unit ahead of Qualifying after a reliability concern, while Tanabe also bemoaned the first lap crash with Lance Stroll that prevented Brendon Hartley from making gains from his twelfth placed grid slot.
“A weekend of positives and negatives: on the positive side, the PU updates we brought here delivered a noticeable increase in performance, which is a good sign for the next stage of the season,” said Tanabe. “On the negative side, we had a reliability issue on Pierre’s PU on Saturday and Brendon’s race was very short.
“However, Pierre had a strong race from the back of the grid and now we will focus on ensuring both drivers can perform well, starting with Pierre’s home race in two weeks’ time in France.”
