Honda preview the new season
Published on 10 March 2020 by Niels Hendrix
A new year, and a new set of expectations for the two Honda-powered teams as Aston Martin Red Bull Racing and Scuderia AlphaTauri prepare to head to Australia for the opening race of the 2020 season.
It feels like as good a time as any to reflect on progress since this time last year, as 12 months ago Honda were getting ready for their first season in partnership with Red Bull, and first time supplying two teams since returning to the sport in 2015.
Masashi Yamamoto - Honda F1 managing director - has overseen the busy period and was encouraged by where we found ourselves at the end of last season given the aims at the start of it.
“Overall it was above expectations,” Yamamoto-san says. "Having said that, aside from Melbourne the first half of last year was really tough, we struggled until Austria. Especially in Monaco, we had high expectations there but we couldn’t really get a good result, so this year we hope it will not be like that. Regardless of the slower start, as far as Honda is concerned, everything last year was on schedule, so it was all as expected and that has provided a solid base for this year for sure.”
This season is the first year since 2017 that the number of teams Honda supplies hasn’t changed. According to Yamamoto-san, that continuity will bring benefits that will hopefully be visible when it comes to performance and results.
“It gives us huge stability in terms of our team management. Everybody looked very, very positive in the garage during testing and quite confident, so we’re really looking forward to the season. Basically we have kept the same structure internally this year because we just want to focus fully on the development.”
One clear change from last year relates to one of the two teams we supply, with Toro Rosso becoming AlphaTauri and sporting a brand-new look for 2020. Yamamoto-san was present in Salzburg for the unveiling, and is excited to see what the team can produce this year.
“I like it very much, it looks really cool. I knew what it was going to look like in advance of the presentation, but looking at the actual livery and garage set-up, it looks really cool. But more than looks, the team is very important to us. It’s early days but the drivers were very positive during testing. We expect them to perform as well as those tests indicated , perhaps more than that. But what we know for sure is that the team members all look really good in their new clothing!”
Pre-season testing saw over 1500 laps completed between the two teams, and both teams’ final totals were within 11 laps of each other, averaging comfortably more than 100 laps per day. That’s a sign of where the development focus has been over the winter, in order to provide the best platform for success.
“It’s always a balancing act but maintaining the good reliability comes first. Then on top of that we have tried to deliver more power so both teams can be as competitive as possible. We had very good races towards the end of last year, especially in Brazil, and also the development in the factory has gone really smoothly during the off-season. So I was looking forward to seeing the car on track in testing and now I can’ wait to see how we race in Australia.”
“This year, testing went more smoothly than at any time since we returned to the sport, without any big issues. Overall, both teams were able to replicate an actual race weekend and that was also very good. We feel that we are now well prepared for the season ahead.”
But what of this season ahead? Yamamoto-san has spoken about AlphaTauri’s importance, but many fans want to know if a title challenge with Red Bull is a realistic aim in just our second year together.
“We are making every effort to be there and fight for the championship. We had some unfortunate races last year, losing out in some of them, but we must avoid having those sort of races this year. Max says he wants to get on the podium at all the races, which is an aim we must support.”
“From my point of view it’s all about management. The structure is really efficient and there are many things we have learned from our first year with Red Bull, such as how to put personnel into suitable positions and what is the most efficient way to operate.”
"The other thing is last year for the first time we had four drivers instead of two, and Max Verstappen especially gave us really good feedback which was reflected in the development. So it was really useful to have Red Bull and Max contributing there.”
Helmut Marko’s prediction of a certain number of victories last season was repeated on many occasions when reflecting on how we were performing, and Yamamoto-san admits it wasn’t too far away from his own expectations. This year, he won’t set such specific targets, but does see certain races where the teams will have to aim high.
“There are no real specific targets, but speaking about last year Helmut kept saying five wins and my view was probably four wins. In the end we had three wins, but there were a couple of races where we missed out such as Mexico, and the other one was probably Monza, so we could have won more.
"As Honda we have to make sure that we provide everything for Max and Alex Albon as well for them to be able to race and maximise each potential result. Then we will be able to see how many we can win.”
“Last year we had 11 podiums - nine for Red Bull and two for Toro Rosso - so my view is there are 11 circuits where the Red Bull teams have some sort of an advantage. We have to see how many we can win among those 11, because those are the ones where we have opportunities.”
