FEBRUARY 18, 2019

Honda has reached a very high level

During the 2018 season the Toro Rosso often had to change the Honda engines in its cars. But team principal Franz Tost does not foresee the same thing happening this year.

Max Verstappen

During the 2018 season the Toro Rosso often had to change the Honda engines in its cars. But team principal Franz Tost does not foresee the same thing happening this year.

"In 2018 we knew from the very beginning onwards that it is a development process which we have to go through," Tost said in the paddock of the Circuit Barcelona-Catalunya. "And this is what we did. In the meantime, Honda has reached a very high level on the reliability side as well as the performance side. So don't expect that we will have so many additional engine changes this year. First of all, we calculate with three power units and the rest we will see."

The rules this year limit each driver to three power units. Using more than that will result in grid penalties.

What does Tost think of Honda's development over last 12 months?

"I am very happy about this," he said. "All the expectations I put in to them they delivered and I am quite sure that they will close the gap to the top teams, and that Red Bull Racing will be able to win races with them. And we will also gain a lot of advantages out of this cooperation."

Because the deal for Toro Rosso to use Honda engines happened quite late, Toro Rosso could not full integrate the power unit and chassis in 2018. But the team had plenty of time to do that with its 2019 car.

"If you look at the car, and how the power unit is integrated, then it is a big step forward," Tost said. "I must say it was a big step from the engineering side as we had much more timem and there was a really good cooperation with Honda and also Red Bull Technology. So from this side we are quite well organized."

Tost says Toro Rosso is optimistic about the 2019 season.

"We worked very hard during the winter months," he said. "We reshuffled the team a little bit which means from the team side we made a bit of progress. We think we have a good car because we were quite happy so far with all the different steps we did. We have with Honda a very strong partner. We have two new drivers with Alex Albon and Daniil Kvyat who is back to us."