Toro Rosso pair Pierre Gasly and Brendon Hartley say they are “very excited” about the potential performance gain from Honda’s updated power unit.
Honda introduced its Spec 3 power unit at last weekend’s Russian Grand Prix and both drivers trialled it during practice, with Gasly placing eighth on Friday afternoon.
Honda opted not to run the engine for the remainder of the weekend in order to undertake further calibration checks, ostensibly in a bid to boost its chances on home ground at this weekend’s Japanese Grand Prix.
“We haven’t had an update for a long time,” said Hartley.
“We did have an aero update which didn’t really work. We’ve definitely been waiting for an update on any description.
“I think the one from Honda is one that we're very excited about.
“We believe it will bring a good step in performance.
“I don’t want to say exactly how much but the truth is I don’t know the exact numbers. It’s a step that we’ll see on the lap time, which is important.”
Added Gasly: “It’s a gain of performance, as I said in Sochi we don’t know exactly how much, it’s positive, we just needed to run a bit more with it to fine-tune it.
“It should give us more performance. I think in Sochi over one lap we looked better already and on Friday was quite positive, hopefully, similar here this weekend, after it’s going to be the first time we use it all race weekend.
“Clearly more optimistic in terms of performance I have been last few weekends.”
Toro Rosso currently holds eighth position in the Constructors’ Championship but its advantage over Sauber has been cut to just three points following Charles Leclerc’s seventh place in Russia.
