Honda set their sights on home-race at Suzuka after "improvement" in 2019

With Honda teaming up with Red Bull this season after a successful trial period with their sister-team Toro Rosso, the Japanese manufacturer has managed to help the team win two races with Max Verstappen successful in Austria and Germany.

With the home race of Honda right around the corner, the engine supplier have their eyes firmly focussed on improving the car for the race at Suzuka.

"I think we can fight with the improved spec-4 engine in Japan," Yasuaki Agasi, the Executive Director of the Honda Development Department said to AutoSportWeb. "The car itself has also become more competitive this season, so I think we can get along well at Suzuka.

"The real fight, I think we will fight it out next year. In this way, I want to prepare myself for that."

It looks like Honda may have overtaken their direct power unit competitor Mercedes, but Agasi is trying not to read too much into that.

"I don't know exactly what was going on there," Agasi referred to the Mercedes engines. "Before I say that we have reached the same level with the spec-4, I want to see some more analysis.

"Our goal for this season was to catch up with Mercedes in terms of the engine. Whether that is the case? This is at least the first season in which we can see the growth was so strong that we could think of reaching the same level."