Tanabe faces
a dilemmaMOTORSPORTIMAGES/D
ZIADOSZPIT + PADDOCK22 AUGUST 2019 AUTOSPORT.COM 5Honda is weighing up whether to continue in F
after the end of next season, and its victory in Austria
was well timed in that it preceded a board meeting.
“There is not much we could do more than this,”
said Honda F1 managing director Masashi Yamamoto.
“What we’ve kept saying is we wanted to exceed last
year’s Red Bull result. We didn’t say we want to win
five races, but we want to exceed the points Red Bull
scored last year and maybe five wins is possible.”
Honda needs three more wins and nine more podiums
with Red Bull to beat the team’s 2018 record with
Renault, but is on course to beat its points tally despite a
performance disparity between the team’s 2019 drivers.
Pierre Gasly has struggled in his first year with the Red
Bull senior team and will be replaced by Alex Albon from
the upcoming Belgian GP, but Verstappen’s impressive
campaign means Red Bull has 21 more points with Honda
than it did at the same stage last season with Renault.
Verstappen has 181 points with Honda power
compared to 105 points at the same point in 2018.
Even Daniel Ricciardo, who was Red Bull’s lead driver
in the championship heading into the summer break,
only had 118 points at this time last season.
Yamamoto’s faith in Honda’s ongoing participation
has been increased following the two victories. “I
think it’s going to encourage us for continuation,”
said Yamamoto. “Honda and generally in society
[in Japan] are in a very good mood that Honda has
won. I think it’s going to be very good for us.”
SCOTT MITCHELLINDYCARIndyCar rookie Felix Rosenqvist
was hospitalised following a
shocking five-car pile-up on the
opening lap of last Sunday’s
500-mile race at Pocono.
Takuma Sato, Alexander Rossi
and Ryan Hunter-Reay collided
approaching Turn 2. James
Hinchcliffe could not avoid the
wreckage, while Rosenqvist
clipped Sato – whose car
overturned – and was launched
into a scary aerial ride along the
fence (below), echoing Robert
Wickens’s career-ending accident
at the same track in 2018.
While the other four drivers
were checked over in the infield
medical centre, Rosenqvist was
taken to hospital for scans but
was later released.
“I just have some minor back
pain and a bit of a headache,”
said Rosenqvist, who will be
back behind the wheel of his
Chip Ganassi Racing car for
this Saturday’s race at Gateway.
“Hopefully I will be back to
normal in a couple of days. A big
thank you to the IndyCar track
staff and medical personnel;
they did an awesome job looking
after everything. Luckily the
other drivers are OK as well,
which I think is the main thing.”
Rossi slammed Sato for the
incident. “I can’t even begin to
understand after last year how
Takuma thinks any sort of
driving like that is acceptable,”
he said. “To turn across two cars
at that speed is disgraceful.”
Sato tweeted: Looks like
[Rossi] squeezed both Ryan and
I, and if you reference [track]
seams, Alex clearly moved up.
We [are] all racing very close and
unfortunately we made contact.”RED BULL PENALTIES
POCONO SHUNT
PUTS ROSENQVIST
IN HOSPITAL
P50 REPORTROMNEY