Toro Rosso pleased with Honda's progress in second half

The focus may be on Red Bull’s journey with Honda beginning in 2019 but Toro Rosso have been using their power units for a year and the team have been impressed with the progress the Japanese company have made.

Toro Rosso ran with a Honda engine for 2018 as part of the preparation for the lead team, Red Bull to also use one in 2019.

The team also enter with a whole new line up with Brendan Hartley leaving the setup and Pierre Gasly stepping up to Red Bull, leaving Alexander Albon and Daniil Kyvat to lead the way.

In a Q and A on f1technical.net technical chief, Jody Egginton spoke about the progress on all fronts saying: “We were very impressed at the development rate from Honda during the second half of last season.

“Now that Red Bull Racing will be using Honda power in 2019, they will be able to take ownership of a lot of the dyno activity and play an important role in the development of the PU.

“On the design side, we've been able to put more resource into the integration of the car systems, PU integration, and cooling package integration,” added Egginton