Honda, Red Bull partner, wants to reduce the gap with the best teams of the season | Now

The boss of the Honda engine builder somewhat moderated the expectations for the start of the new Formula 1 season on Friday. The Japanese supplier of Red Bull Racing does not expect to be able to compete directly with Mercedes and Ferrari.

"We are going to take a big step this winter, we want to be the third engine supplier at the start, then try the best teams in the course of" We do not want to give a precise timetable for this, "says Masashi Yamamoto, boss of Honda, against Motorsport.com . "So they are always before us. "

Red Bull has great expectations for cooperation with Honda.The Max Verstappen team bid farewell to the Renault engine supplier at the end of last season, after twelve years." The cooperation with the French manufacturer has been slow in recent years.

Although Yamamoto is a little cautious about the start of the Formula 1 season, the Japanese have every confidence "

" After four years of development and testing, we believe that we are on the right track and our picture is much better than in previous years, so I think we're growing fast. "[19659007] Red Bull gets the" party mode "

Earlier this month, Red Bull advisor Helmut Marko announced that his team in 2019, following Mercedes and Ferrari, will have access to the "party mode". This means that the Honda engine has more power during qualifying.

The Austrian was also very optimistic about the developments that he sees at Honda. "The numbers make us very optimistic, even with regard to improving performance," he said.

"The Honda engine is already better than the Renault power source, if you combine our GPS data with Honda data, we will be close to Mercedes and Ferrari."

The new season Formula 1 starts on the weekend of March 15 to 17 with the Grand Prix of Australia. Next month is already on trial at the Barcelona circuit and before that, Red Bull will present the new car.