18/07/2020
NEWS STORY
Having missed the entire opening practice session on Friday due to an engine sensor issue, Pierre Gasly was plagued by problems again during qualifying.
Complaining of a loss of power in Q2, the Frenchman was told that nothing could be done at the time and he would have to "live with it", and while he made it into Q3 the problem reoccurred and he was able to post a time.
In a bid to "avoid further risk", Honda has opted to change his power unit.
"We spotted something on the data which led to the decision not to run in Q3," said Honda technical director, Toyoharu Tanabe. "To avoid any further risk, we will change the PU overnight, penalty free.
"The PU used so far this weekend is being sent to Sakura for an in depth examination to find the cause of the issue," he added.
"I'm pretty happy that I made it through to Q3 for the second time this year," said Gasly, "but it's a shame we had issues over the weekend and these cost us our second run in Q2 and running in Q3.
"In terms of performance, I'm pleased that I could put everything together in qualifying after almost no running yesterday. It was quite challenging but in the end I managed to do some decent laps and felt pretty good in the car. Hopefully that's going to be the case also in the race tomorrow."
Check out our Saturday gallery from Budapest, here.