Honda forced to change engine parts after one race

Toro Rosso duo Pierre Gasly and Brendon Hartley will take on new engine parts for the Bahrain Grand Prix as Honda begin to show yet more signs of unreliability. And pre-season hopes that the Japanese manufacturer's woes were behind them are starting to fade.

Only Mercedes and Ferrari completed more laps in pre-season than Toro Rosso, but that optimism soon fizzled out at the Australian Grand Prix.

Gasly was forced to retire after just 13 laps at Albert Park, while Hartley was the only driver not to finish on the lead lap.

Though the changes will not incur a penalty, both Gasly and Hartley have only one change of the new parts left available to them across 20 races this season - if the old parts cannot be salvaged.

"During the race in Australia, we had an issue with the MGU-H and turbocharger on Pierre's car and this had the knock-on effect of also damaging the internal combustion engine," said Honda's F1 technical director Toyoharu Tanabe.

"Therefore, in Bahrain, Pierre will use a new ICE, MGU-H and turbocharger," he adds. "The MGU-H and turbo have both been modified, in light of what we learned in the first race.

"Given the problems we encountered in Melbourne, we have decided, as a precautionary measure, to also change the MGU-H and turbocharger on Brendon's car, fitting the new modified components," he revealed.

"Replacing components for the second race is obviously a difficult decision and not ideal, given that the number of power units and ancillary components is now limited to just three per season, however we believe this is the right way forward and we will continue our development in order to ensure the same issue does not reoccur."

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