Have Honda Finally Turned The Corner in F1?

[Dux]

One bird doesn't make spring. Many teams were quite close, Alfa Romeo running closely on 8th 9th for good part of the race, Norris fighting for 3/4/5th in the early stage of the race. What we do know is that pretty much cars performance and race quality is circuit layout dependent, after the complete contrast we had just 9 days ago.

Engine wise I don't think they've made lot's of progress but who can tell. Anyway I wasn't surprised since Gasly won P4 in Bahrain last year with Honda engine.

 

[Boby Kim]

Yes of course they have turned around the corner. From now on they will win every race

 

[wombat999]

HONDA are not the sort of operation to give up and this will be one of many.

 

[Chris Haye]

Hopefully it's the first of many. But, I suspect the next Honda powered win will be in 2020.

 

[Antony Snook]

Honda a good manufacturer. Problem was there return to F1 and they put to much horsepower in the engine. This made the car less reliable so the drivers could not use full revs. Hence the car was slow and more reliable. All engine builders have the balance scale with horsepower on one end and reliability on the other. Its like my bud he was a sprinter. One day he tried a marathon and quit half way. I told him its a longer race so you cant sprint it, pace yourself. Find marks on the course a quarter half way and so on. And sprint with all the saved energy for the finish.

 

[M-Bimmer]

Staged to make “drive to survive” season 2 interesting
Jokes aside, with Ferrari addiction to sucking at pit strategy, it’s good to have other teams (not only benz) stepping up and snatching the win(s). Hope to see more wins from other teams to make the season interesting.

 

[motoliser]

Who cares?? Daniel Ric will be joining Ferrari or Mercedes next Season so no chance for RedBull anymore!!!

 

[snyperal]

From fighting for podiums to fighting for points. His career may well be going the alonso route.

 

[Appie Kuipers]

Who cares?? Daniel Ric will be joining Ferrari or Mercedes next Season so no chance for RedBull anymore!!!

Who would drive a Ferrari, at Ferrari things are allways not yet!

 

[paracletus]

RB have been great at turning corners in F1 for years.
Going down the straights they aren't so good at.

Mercedes have given some details:
"Mercedes team principal Toto Wolff referred to the car's cooling as its "Achilles' heel" after the race and said that the team was "carrying the problem" since the start of 2019.

In Mercedes' regular post-race Pure Pitwall video, trackside engineering director Andrew Shovlin has outlined how the pursuit of aggressive packaging has led to the W09 having a cooling system that has "underdelivered" in the hottest temperatures.

"Fundamentally the car doesn't have big enough radiators," said Shovlin"

 

[Antony Snook]

Honda a good manufacturer. Problem was there return to F1 and they put to much horsepower in the engine. This made the car less reliable so the drivers could not use full revs. Hence the car was slow and more reliable. All engine builders have the balance scale with horsepower on one end and reliability on the other. Its like my bud he was a sprinter. One day he tried a marathon and quit half way. I told him its a longer race so you cant sprint it, pace yourself. Find marks on the course a quarter half way and so on. And sprint with all the saved energy for the finish.

Mercedes Benz did the same when they came into F1. Murray Walker bragged about horse power. In the end the car blew up. Mika Hakkinen could not control the McLaren under the high horsepower.

 

[Terry Rock]

One bird doesn't make spring. Many teams were quite close, Alfa Romeo running closely on 8th 9th for good part of the race, Norris fighting for 3/4/5th in the early stage of the race. What we do know is that pretty much cars performance and race quality is circuit layout dependent, after the complete contrast we had just 9 days ago.

Engine wise I don't think they've made lot's of progress but who can tell. Anyway I wasn't surprised since Gasly won P4 in Bahrain last year with Honda engine.

How could anybody say they haven't made lots of progress?
You must not have been here for the multiple engine failures...despite running slower than just about any other car in the F1 field.
In some ways, poor Stoffel Vandoorne was a casualty of those slow unreliable Honda engine days.
Fernando was already established as a fast, competent driver so he was never at risk...choosing to 'walk' away when he got thoroughly fed-up.
How many failures have you seen lately compared to what you saw during the McLaren partnership....and we all know RB is notoriously tight where drive-train packaging is concerned.