By Phil Huff
March 5 2007

Honda are due to make a major update to the RA107 before the Malaysian Grand Prix, the second race of the season, according to reports elsewhere. "There will be a big upgrade at the Sepang test, and also a revision to the suspension," Honda Racing F1's Senior Technical Director, Shuhei Nakamoto, told autosport.com. "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 (in testing) so they lose one or two tenths, but we will still be behind."

While it’s fair to say that the RA107 has failed to set the timesheets alight, the long-run pace of the car isn't far off the pace, with Nick Fry telling RealHondaF1.com that they expect to be around half a second a lap behind the leading McLaren and Ferrari cars.

"There's certainly more to come," Fry told RealHondaF1.com. "We've taken a bigger step in the longer runs that will give us more potential for improvements, but in the shorter runs it's a bit more difficult to set up. In terms of last week, one lap times were a big problem, but long run times you're probably right, we're probably half a second at least from where we should be.

"Realistically, where I believe we are is that we'll be in a position to score points in Melbourne," he continued. "We want to be winning races certainly, and I think we'll be winning races in the second half of the season, but what I'll say to your readers is 'please don't expect us to win in Melbourne as we probably won't.'"

It's understood that any upgrades will be part of the normal development plan, so the upgrade is perhaps not quite as major as some may be expecting. Concentrating on aero development, the upgrade is likely to see revisions of existing winglets and such like, allied to a new front wing and perhaps rear wing developments.

The suspension geometry will also get a minor revision following work with Bridgestone in order to extract as much performance as possible from the new tyres.