Honda F1 Technical Director Toyoharu Tanabe expressed encouragement over the marque’s pre-season form, having used just one power unit across the course of the second test.
Honda endured a challenging partnership with McLaren between 2015 and 2017, amid reliability and performance issues, but has switched to supplying Toro Rosso on a three-year deal.
The STR13 ran relatively reliably across the course of both tests, halted only by a brake system issue on the opening day of test two, and an anomaly in the power unit data on the final afternoon.
“We used the same power unit throughout test two,” said Tanabe, appointed to head up Honda's F1 project this year.
“Therefore, it was disappointing that we spotted an anomaly on the data from our PU towards the end of the session and decided to stop running, as there would not have been enough time to investigate the situation fully and send the car out again.
“Overall, the results of winter testing have been satisfactory, as we managed to get through nearly all items on our programme, thus acquiring plenty of valuable data.
“Equally important, it was our first eight days of working at a race track together with Toro Rosso.
“Our relationship has been very open and honest and communication has been effective between all of us.
“It’s only testing, but it has been an ideal start and now we look forward to racing together in Melbourne.”
Toro Rosso Technical Director James Key was also enthused by the operation’s progress through testing.
“They really have only run one engine for the entirety of test two” he said.
“It’s run pretty much faultlessly throughout, other than a minor issue towards the end of the test where we stopped the car as a precaution to have a look at the issue in more detail and not take any risks.
“Given we were close to the completion of our programme anyway, we felt it was better to spend some time on that, but otherwise everything with them has run faultlessly.”
