Brawn: Honda made important progress in performance

Formula 1 motorsport chief Ross Brawn is impressed with the progress Honda has made with Toro Rosso this season, feedback that will no doubt be music to the ears of Red Bull bosses who have slapped all their money on the Japanese auto giant providing them with a race-winning engine next year.

Looking back on the season, after 12 rounds, Brawn observed, “Given the situation and the resources available, Toro Rosso is doing a good job, just like Honda. The Japanese have made important progress, especially in terms of performance.”

“It is important that they are on the right path as they will also be providing power units to their Red Bull sister team next year. The more teams that can battle it out at the top the better the show – that’s exactly what fans and we in Formula 1 also want.”

Stats at this stage show that Toro Rosso are eighth in the championship standings, having scored nearly half of what their closest rival team has scored this season.

But Brawn sees the positives after their good showing at the recent Hungarian Grand Prix, “The Honda-powered team celebrated their best qualifying result of the year.”

“In the race, Gasly drove to a brilliant sixth place. He was the only one who was not outscored by a star driver from one of the top three teams and Hartley was in eleventh also close to the points.”

“The team have experienced ups-and-downs this season, on the one hand, there were the highlights like Bahrain, Monaco and Hungary, but on the other hand they were victims of a lot of bad luck,” added Brawn whose own ‘minnow’ team – Brawn GP – dominated the 2009 F1 world championship with a car originally built for Honda, only to be powered by Mercedes after the Japanese bosses pulled the plug on their F1 programme.

Big Question: Will Honda find the power they need to challenge for victories next year with Red Bull?