Honda Engines Score Three Top-10 Results At Spa F1 Race

September 3, 2019 by Honda

Toro Rosso gets two cars in points for third time in 2019 Alex Albon fifth in first race with Red Bull All four Honda drivers now in top 10 in championship points

A driver swap during the Formula 1 midsummer break showed no ill effects on either of the Honda-powered teams in Sunday's Belgian Grand Prix, as three drivers earned championship points after 44 tough laps around the famed Spa-Francorchamps circuit.

The day's excitement was muted by the death of young French driver Anthoine Hubert in Saturday's F2 event at Spa, a loss felt especially deeply by Red Bull Toro Rosso Honda driver Pierre Gasly who came through the open-wheel ranks with Hubert. The drivers all gathered for a memorial to the Frenchman prior to the start of the race and many carried tributes on their cars and helmets.

The race featured Gasly's return to Toro Rosso – where he raced in 2018 – as he swapped places with rookie Alex Albon for the remainder of the 2019 season, with Albon taking over as a teammate to Max Verstappen in the Aston Martin Red Bull. The Spa weekend also featured Honda's rollout of the new Spec 4 power unit on the cars of Albon and Daniil Kvyat, which forced them to accept grid penalties that had them starting 17th and 19th respectively.

But the challenges posed by the penalties were quickly erased as Kvyat gained eight positions on the first lap while Albon and Gasly each climbed four spots. Unfortunately, the opening lap wasn't as kind to Verstappen. Starting fifth, Verstappen did not get the start he wanted and dropped back, forcing him to make a move to the inside of the first corner to avoid losing positions, where contact with Kimi Raikkonen ended his day.

Tire strategies and the new power unit served Albon and Kvyat well as both drivers went past the race's halfway point before changing to softer Pirellis, which helped move them well into the top 10. Once the softer tires were bolted on both cars, they were able to use them to make some thrilling late-race passes to gain spots on cars that were struggling with older shoes.

Albon in particular made the most of his softer tires, making a tight pass of Daniel Ricciardo on the outside of one corner, using DRS to overtake Kvyat and then putting his right-side tires on the grass to race past Sergio Perez on the last lap to earn a career-best fifth-place finish. Kvyat earned a seventh-place finish to mark his third points-paying result in the last four races while Gasly fought off Lance Stroll over the final laps to secure ninth place.

Verstappen's incident ended a streak of 21st consecutive top-five finishes, including 12 in a row to start the season – the most ever to start a year by a Honda-powered driver. He remains in third in the championship while Gasly remains in sixth. Kvyat climbs to eighth and Albon vaulted into 10th with his finish, putting all four Honda-powered drivers into the top 10 in the Formula 1 standings.

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Formula 1 gets right back to work this weekend by visiting another storied circuit for the September 8 Italian Grand Prix at the famed Autodromo Nazionale Monza.

Toyoharu Tanabe

Technical Director, Honda F1

'It was unfortunate to lose Max so early in the race, as the best placed of our four drivers, being fifth on the grid. However, all three other drivers, despite starting from the back half, managed to finish in the points today. Therefore in the end, this can be considered a positive result for both our teams. Alex did particularly well in his first race with Aston Martin Red Bull Racing, going from 17th on the grid to fifth, delivering a very strong drive. Both the Toro Rosso cars showed a good pace and the fights involving our own drivers were particularly exciting! On the PU side, the Spec 4 we introduced for the first time this weekend, matched our expectations and we acquired plenty of data to analyze for future use.'

Max Verstappen

Aston Martin Red Bull Racing

Start 5th, Finish: NC (first lap contact)

'It was of course not a great end to the weekend but it's not the worst thing that can happen in life as we have seen yesterday, so I cannot really call this frustration. I got a poor start, the reaction was not great and then I got wheel spin when I released the clutch. I tried to stay on the inside into Turn 1 but I think Kimi expected to be fully ahead of me and just followed his line. I don't think you can blame anyone and I guess he just didn't see me, once I was next to him and he was turning then we couldn't back out. We touched, my track rod was broken so I went straight on into the barrier at Eau Rouge and the race was over. These things happen, it's very unfortunate for the Team and we will of course try and do better next week.'

Alex Albon

Aston Martin Red Bull Racing

Start: 17th, Finish: 5th

'I'm very happy. P5 is an amazing result and we've got off to a great start. It was actually a difficult race and in the first stint I struggled with grip in the dirty air and couldn't overtake anyone. But then once we pitted for the soft tires, the car came alive and I was like - now we can do something! The last lap was really good, I had a good fight with Sergio where we were both on the grass and it made for some good racing. There are definitely some areas I need to improve on and over the next few days I'll do some homework and address them for Monza. Last night was very tough, us rookies knew Anthoine very well, so it's been a stressful few hours and this morning felt strange. When you know a person and when they're at the race track, it's a very difficult atmosphere, so we dedicate this race to him.'

Daniil Kvyat

Red Bull Toro Rosso Honda

Start: 19th, Finish: 7th

'We had a fantastic race today, to come from last on the grid to P7 was a great result. We knew that with the cooler conditions it would be much better for our car, and actually we made a very big step in the race. Our car seems to perform better on Sundays this year, which I prefer – it's where you need to be the fastest. We had many overtakes, good tire management, a great strategy, and today we also had the pace to be competitive. We put everything together and I'm really happy with my racing and the final result. It was a lot of fun.'

Pierre Gasly

Red Bull Toro Rosso Honda

Start: 13th, Finish: 9th

'This was the most emotional race of my career, it was important for me to deliver the best performance I could for Anthoine. In the end it was a good result and I'm happy to get two points on my first race back with Toro Rosso. We knew it was going to be a tough race and we really went for it. We had an aggressive strategy pitting early, and we knew we would have to fight a lot on the second part of the race against the other guys on the softer compound. I gave it my best in attacking and defending, we had some good close racing and I'm really happy to score these two points, for the team and for Anthoine. I've discovered quite a few more things about the car during the race, it's quite different to the Red Bull one, and lap after lap I could feel it getting better so I'm sure there will be more to come in the upcoming races.'