Not Enough Progress for Taiyo and Mario

Lusail International Circuit

Both Honda Team Asia riders improved considerably with each session, even allowing Furusato into Q2. But this progress was insufficient to get a good grid position for tomorrow's race.

Hiroshi Aoyama

Honda Team Asia

It was a tricky qualifying session. The track grip has improved, allowing everybody to be faster, but our riders didn't expect it to be fast enough. We could do it better. For Mario, we missed the best moment to send him out of track. About Taiyo, he had space to make it, but he couldn't be as fast as he needed to be in front. Tomorrow, we're sure it will be a tough race; we will need to find solutions to gain positions in the race.

Taiyo Furusato ⁷²

Honda Team Asia

Today, we struggled a lot to feel this slippery new tarmac. From yesterday, I improved session by session, starting to have the correct setup. I'm glad to be in Q2, but It didn't have enough speed to get a good grid position.

Mario Suryo Aji ⁶⁴

Honda Team Asia

We used our last rear M tire in FP2 because we thought nobody could improve the lap time with the high temperature in P3. It was a mistake because we had no M tire for the P3. Despite this, I felt good with the D tire and improved my lap time by almost two seconds. I felt confident, but in Q1, something needed to be fixed. We will see what happens tomorrow in the race.