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Red Bull's next Honda upgrade to include 'party mode'?

Photo: © LAT Images

Red Bull's next Honda upgrade to include 'party mode'?

Look out for this one!

Honda say the focus of its next engine upgrade will be to give Red Bull and Toro Rosso greater power in qualifying, an area which the Japanese marque still lacks in 2019.

Mercedes and Ferrari-powered teams have long had extra power or their one-lap efforts on a Saturday, infamously dubbed the "party mode" by Lewis Hamilton last year.

Red Bull ditched Renault last year, with their one-lap deficit part of their frustrations, but Max Verstappen spoke of seeing McLaren use a seemingly new-found quali mode from the French supplier to great effects in France.

Red Bull have called on Honda to take more risks as they look to keep pace with Ferrari and Mercedes' works teams, and Max Verstappen being allowed to push his engine to the limit paid off last time out as the Dutchman secured victory in Austria.

Honda's next upgrade is slated for Monza, where speed is king, and Honda's F1 boss Toyoharu Tanabe says the plan is to make strides in top-line pace.

"We try to use our engine as hard as we can," said Tanabe.

"It's not easy to make it higher immediately. But we keep developing, maybe in the next spec or update. But not the next race!"

"We see a bigger gap in qualifying compared to the others.

"In the race we are still behind but not as much as in qualifying.

"So it means the next step we need to catch up is a qualifying mode or something, but it's not easy."

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