According to rumours, Honda are planning some big upgrades before the second race in Malaysia. According to Shuhei Nakamoto, Honda Racing F1’s Senior Technical Director, “there will be a big upgrade at the Sepang test, and also a revision to the suspension. At the moment we are ahead of Red Bull and Toyota, but behind the rest. I know BMW have been using a non-2007 wing so they lose one or two-tenths, but we are still behind.”
The RA107 has been a solid, but un-starry performer so far in testing, although over race-distance, the car isn’t too far off the pace. Nick Fry has told reporters that they are expecting to be about half a second down on the front runners on each lap.
“There’s certainly more to come,” Fry insisted. “We have taken a bigger step in the longer runs that give us more potential for improvements, but in the shorter runs, it’s a bit more difficult to setup. In terms of last week, one-lap times were a big problem, but long-run times, you are probably right – we are probably half a second at least from where we should be.”
