Gasly: ​​Positive to see how responsive Honda is

For the second time in three races, Pierre Gasly and his teammate Brendon Hartley will start at the back of the pack due to a change in driving elements. 

Introduced in Russia, the C specification of the Honda unit was used for the first time in qualifying and then in the race at Suzuka two weeks ago. Despite the promises shown on home soil (double entry in Q3, 6th and 7th place on the grid), the Japanese manufacturer once again detected vibration problems and wanted to resolve them immediately. 

Consequence: the two pilots Toro Rosso received revised engine components for the United States Grand Prix, with the known consequences for their starting order. 

« Nobody is happy to start from the back of the grid but we are all happy to be able to count on a powerful engine, wanted to be positive about Gasly after the first free practice sessions in Texas. We carried out extensive analysis work and found that the old engine did not allow us to deliver a good performance in the race. Ok, we will start from afar and we will have to overtake more people to get back into the points but the performance of the car will be better and we hope to use it to move up the rankings ». 

Gasly, who will continue to fuel Honda at Red Bull Racing in 2019, says he is convinced that the suffering of the present will lay the foundations for a more cheerful future. 

« Clearly, the difficulties we are currently facing are all efforts made to build a high-performance chassis-engine assembly for next season., added the Norman. The earlier we are able to identify problems, the more competitive we will be in 2019. 

We have a more global vision of things. Basically, we wanted to make this improvement later, after having really debugged it on the test bench, but we ultimately said to ourselves that it was more relevant to launch it on the track where the conditions are always a little different. 

It’s really positive to see Honda’s ability to react. The Japanese Grand Prix took place less than two weeks ago. We had some problems there and this weekend we already have an evolution and solutions put in place. They are super fast. Last year, at the same time, we had a lot of engine problems and nothing really changed from one race to the next. ». 

Remember that Toro Rosso had engines Renault last year.