Verstappen, Gasly say Honda upgrade won't close gap to Ferrari, Mercedes

Red Bull drivers Max Verstappen and Pierre Gasly have played down the potency of Honda's upgraded engine for the French Grand Prix. According to reports, Red bull will gain an extra 10 bhp, but neither driver expects it to make too much of a difference.

Red Bull have routinely spoke positively about their new partnership with Honda, although the Japanese manufacturer remains behind Mercedes and Ferrari in the power stakes.

With Red Bull still seeking the best aerodynamically, results have tailed off from the back-end of last season, when Verstappen was one of the grid's in-form drivers.

The Dutchman has kept his performances high to take two podiums so far, but now he craves more power, despite the threat of grid penalties later in the year.

"It's always good to have upgrades but I'm not expecting to suddenly lead the pack, but every little step we can have we take it, even if it means we are already on our third engine," Verstappen said.

"Reliability is not a problem but we want performance. As you could see in Canada, even with not the best pace you could still easily get to a fifth position anyway."

Gasly says the upgrade is more likely to make a difference on Sunday than Saturday at his home race.

"We have a new spec Honda - I think the last one we introduced was more on the reliability-side," Gasly said. "This one will be a bit more focused on the performance, but we don't expect a massive gain from it.

"I think the overall performance will be slightly increased but it's not like it's going to change massively - or catch the teams ahead of us massively.

"So let's see what we can do during the weekend but it should give us a bit more in the race but it's not going to be massively different in qualifying."

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