Honda Racing F1 has confirmed that it will bring the Spec 2 power unit for this weekend’s F1 Azerbaijan GP as it reveals the cause for Daniil Kvyat’s China failure.

Toro Rosso’s Kvyat’s power unit was changed between FP1 and FP2 after Honda found irregularity in the Russian’s numbers after the first practice session in the Chinese GP weekend. Following the checks done at Honda’s HQ, it has found the issue with the unit.

The Japanese manufacturer says it was a ‘quality control issue’ which is why Honda decided to bring in the Spec 2 engine for this weekend’s Azerbaijan GP on all the four cars, which offers better reliability and slight performance increase.

“The fourth round of the championship takes place on the fastest street circuit on the calendar,” started Honda’s Toyoharu Tanabe. “The key features of the Baku track are the main straight, which is over 2 km in length and the many right angle corners, typical of a city circuit.

“From a PU point of view, the long straight means energy management is an important factor and we will use the lessons we learned here last year when it comes to optimising our settings.

“This weekend, we will introduce the Spec 2 version of our internal combustion engine (ICE) across all four cars right from the start of the weekend. One of the reasons for bringing it to this race is that we found that Kvyat’s PU problem in China was down to a quality control issue.

“The main benefits of Spec 2 are improved durability and life and better reliability. It also offers a slight improvement in performance.” It remains to be seen how much can Red Bull and Toro Rosso gain from it with Ferrari also bringing their own upgrades.

In terms of the components used so far, while for the Red Bull drivers Max Verstappen and Pierre Gasly, it will be their second one but for the Toro Rosso drivers Kvyat and Alexander Albon, it will already be their third in just the fourth race of 2019.

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