By BAR Honda
May 24 2005

The European Grand Prix at the Nurburgring in Germany this week heralds the return of Lucky Strike BAR Honda to competition after a five-week absence from the racetrack. Waiting in the wings for the past two races has only sharpened its resolve and both team and drivers, with the full support of the shareholders and team partners, will be back with a vengeance, eager to make the most of the latest developments to the BAR Honda 007.

Another solid test at Paul Ricard recently underlined the relentless effort made by everyone at the Team Operations Centre in Brackley and back in Japan at Tochigi. The team made good use of the past few weeks to put a further series of tyre, brake, engine and aerodynamic developments through their paces, culminating in another fastest lap time for Takuma Sato on the final day of running. Such has been the pace of development that the team believes it can certainly top up its trophy cabinet in Germany and start challenging for wins.

Both Jenson and Takuma revel in the challenge of the Nurburgring circuit which has the full mix of very slow through to high-speed corners, from the revised turn 1, hairpin and chicane, to the double medium-speed 'S' bends and the very high speed 'S' after the hairpin. It also features a lot of undulation change, which is unusual for most 'modern' circuits.

Gil de Ferran, BAR's Sporting Director, commented "We have spent the last few weeks waiting somewhat impatiently for this weekend and, although we would rather have been racing, all efforts went into turning this hiatus into an opportunity for the team to improve its performance. We continued testing and are confident of a good showing at the Nürburgring, just as we were heading into Barcelona. Since we last raced in Imola there have been several enhancements to our aerodynamic performance, which bode well for the coming races. As we haven't had the opportunity to measure up against the competition, we look forward to doing so at the Nürburgring."

Shuhei Nakamoto, Engineering Director at Honda Racing Development, added "We have made good use of the past few weeks to develop the engine for the next round of long-haul races. This weekend we are just looking forward to getting into race action after missing two Grands Prix."