General
Honda will focus on 2021 for the development of their power unit
During the first weekend at the Red Bull Ring, Red Bull Racing clearly lacked some speed compared to Mercedes. Not only in the corners, but also on the straights. Honda were surprised by this difference, considering the development they had gone through.
Honda was seemingly as strong as Mercedes at the end of 2019 and because it was not allowed to work during the spring period due to the coronavirus, Masashi Yamamoto was somewhat surprised by the progress made by his competitor.
Honda did what they could
“During the suspension period, the FIA and all the power unit manufacturers agreed to have a shutdown period," he said to Autosport.com. After which he continued saying that their own programme up to and including the Grand Prix weekend went well. "So everything was as we had planned, but we were surprised by the progress Mercedes has made, especially in qualifying, so we were a little bit surprised by the gap we had to them."
Reliability in 2020 a priority
In the race, both of Red Bull Racing's cars had to deal with electrical problems. Something that was extensively researched by Honda's engineers. The Japanese will, therefore, focus mainly on reliability for the rest of the season.
“We will work on reliability if we think we need to, but because we cannot do anything about performance we are now focusing our development onto the 2021 power unit, which will be the same as everybody else. That’s the attitude we will take from now on."