By Honda Racing F1
March 16 2006

Hot on the heels of an encouraging start to the season in Bahrain last Sunday, the Honda Racing F1 Team heads east across the Indian Ocean to Malaysia for the second round of the Formula One World Championship in Kuala Lumpur this weekend. Although the season-opener may not have yielded the results the team had hoped for, it did confirm the competitiveness of the Honda package versus the competition, which leaves the team feeling positive that there are better things to come in Kuala Lumpur on Sunday.

The drivers' rigorous pre-season fitness training will certainly pay dividends here as they contend with the fierce heat and humidity. With track temperatures likely to reach 50°c, and even hotter in the cockpit, the conditions are far from ideal for the drivers but well suited to the team's RA106 race car and Michelin tyres.

Gil de Ferran
Sporting Director
Honda Racing F1

"After an encouraging start to the season in Bahrain, we are hopeful of a good performance in Malaysia this weekend. Certainly the Sepang circuit presents many challenges, this being the second race on our new engines and with the very high track and air temperatures we will encounter. However, we believe that our car and tyres are suited to conditions and we expect to be fighting at the sharp end of the field. After a frantic first taste of the new qualifying format, there is no reason to expect this next session to be any less exciting, but we will definitely be applying lessons learnt in Bahrain."

Shuhei Nakamoto
Engineering Director
Honda Racing Development

"The season-opener in Bahrain gave us a clearer idea of our level of competitiveness compared to the other teams. As we thought, the top teams are very closely matched, and we will need to keep up a high rate of development throughout the season. We will be targeting a better result in Malaysia, to capitalise on the good race pace Jenson showed in Bahrain."