Categories: F1 News, Reports and Race ResultsHonda

Honda happy with result but not performance

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Yusuke Hasegawa has praised McLaren's performance as a team in the Monaco Grand Prix but wants more from Honda itself.

Fernando Alonso finished fifth and Jenson Button ninth at the end of a chaotic Monaco Grand Prix, handing McLaren 12 points which moved it up to seventh in the constructors' championship. While the result was a strong one, Alonso had to hold off quicker cars throughout the second half of the race and Honda's head of F1 project Hasegawa admits he was hoping for more in terms of raw pace.

“The car performance is not as good as we expected," Hasegawa said. "We thought our car could fit to this circuit more but as a racing result finishing in fifth and ninth is very good. It is very encouraging for the factory side and our drivers as well of course.”

And while the result was an important one for Honda's confidence, Hasegawa says he wants to secure similar positions based on performance in future.

“Of course like me in my position - the technical engineering side - we try to improve the real technical performance rather than just luck or racing incidents. But as a team performance point of view we definitely have two very good drivers and this result comes from their ability. Also from the team tactics as well, the timing of choosing the tyres was very good.

“So this means that we can show our team performance with this very complicated race, which is very encouraging.”

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Andrew Lewin

Andrew first became a fan of Formula 1 during the time when Michael Schumacher and Damon Hill were stepping into the limelight after the era of Alain Prost, Nigel Mansell and Aryton Senna. He's been addicted ever since, and has been writing about the sport now for nearly a quarter of a century for a number of online news sites. He's also written professionally about GP2 (now Formula 2), GP3, IndyCar, World Rally Championship, MotoGP and NASCAR. In his other professional life, Andrew is a freelance writer, social media consultant, web developer/programmer, and digital specialist in the fields of accessibility, usability, IA, online communities and public sector procurement. He worked for many years in magazine production at Bauer Media, and for over a decade he was part of the digital media team at the UK government's communications department. Born and raised in Essex, Andrew currently lives and works in south-west London.