Toro Rosso drivers Pierre Gasly and Brendon Hartley have reverted to Honda’s older specification engine for the remainder of the Russian Grand Prix weekend.
Honda introduced its newest specification power unit at the Sochi Autodrom, with both Gasly and Hartley trialling the package during Friday’s pair of practice sessions.
Gasly put the STR13 into the top 10 by placing eighth, behind only Force India’s Sergio Perez in the midfield pecking order.
But Honda has opted to switch both drivers to its older specification for the remainder of the weekend, as it bids to optimise the package for its home event at Suzuka in a week’s time.
“Having studied all available power unit data after FP2, we realised that, although the performance was encouraging, there is still some work to do in some areas such as calibration and matching the power unit to the chassis,” said Honda chief Toyoharu Tanabe.
So we have decided to revert to the older specification power unit on both cars for the rest of the weekend.
We believe we can complete the work before the Japanese Grand Prix, so that we can run the new specification power units on both cars from then on.”
