A rather difficult translation.. Let's see if anyone can translate better
https://jp.motorsport.com/f1/news/f1-%E ... 9F-891989/
McLaren · Honda of the Chinese Grand Prix which ended in retirement with two cars while running within the winning range. After the race, I asked Mr. Yusuke Hasegawa of Honda about the story.
F1 After the race of the Chinese Grand Prix finishes, Yusuke Hasegawa, Honda's F1 project general manager, responded to the interview.
It was also expected that the Chinese Grand Prix will be pretty tough before the war. But in qualifying, Fernando Alonso is 13th and Stelle Bandon is 16th fastest approaching to Q2 advance. According to good strategy and the skill of Alonso in the final, he showed the performance of running around 6th and 8th.
However, as a result Bando was fuel pressure, Alonso was hit by a drive shaft trouble and could not finish.
First of all, Hasegawa talks about Bando's trouble, "Fuel suddenly has come to pass".
"As a symptom, the pressure of the fuel has dropped, it means that the fuel ceases to come by any cause, because it is not a problem on the engine side, so I think it is a problem somewhere in the fuel tank"
"This kind of problem is quite happening, even if the gas is missing, but this time it is not a gas deficiency indeed ... so I will know if it was the last lap."
"I was told that Sthel was" rebooted (restarted) and I managed to do something? ", But that was not the problem."
On the other hand, Alonso had a problem with the drive shaft as described above and stopped the machine. It was during a fierce battle with Toro Rosso's Carlos Saints Jr.
"Fernando had a fast pace and I think that if I could go there, I got enough points."
"There are parts that were helped by the driver, but as with the total potential of the car, including that, we had enough power to compete for points."
"Sometimes it was a dump (the road was a little wet), but I was running as it was in dry qualifying, so the pace was not bad, of course some people dropped due to the wet road surface Because it was helped relatively, because it is. "
Hasegawa says the current car's potential is "between 13th and 20th counts."
"Actually, I feel somewhere between 13 and 20. I can go within a point range for a moment, I will not say I will not get points, I can not say that. "
As I mentioned at the beginning, we also heard some expectations that in Shanghai it will be a rather tough battle. Especially with a long straight line, it will be overwhelmed by many machines ... there were also such views. In fact, however, Alonso succeeded in suppressing his rivals. Hasegawa asked about this, he replied as follows.
"It's not that bad as you all say, I think that I will enter the point as if I can earn points or not as much as last year, but it is not that level that we were aiming for So it is said that it is largely out of expectation. "
Also, the trouble that occurred in the final of this time was not caused by Honda's power unit. Although troubles related to the power unit have decreased, on the other hand, troubles caused by the McLaren side seem to be noticeable. About this, Hasegawa said,
"We are doing as McLaren Honda including everything, but no one can deny that the machine is the most important factor in being slow, so including reliability and performance, more That means we must do our best. "