Takuma in the Spanish sunshine.

The Silverstone-based team completed a three-day test on Thursday with Giancarlo Fisichella and Takuma Sato both enjoying good track time including Fisichella setting the fastest time of the day on Wednesday with a lap of 1min 13.28secs.

The Roman spent the three days working on general set-up comparisons in the 2002-spec car, focusing on oil levels and engine development for Honda and tyre testing for Bridgestone, before suffering a heavy crash at the end of the week.
Nonetheless, he is pleased with the progress made. "I am very happy about the start we have made with work on the EJ12, although naturally there is a lot still to do," the Italian said, "We are all committed to the objective of making the car as quick as possible. The team at Jordan and Honda are combining their maximum efforts to get good results."

On the first day of the test, Sato drove the older EJ11 before moving to the second EJ12 chassis. He also worked on general set-up, also spending time on race set-up and was content to achieve two race simulations during the test.
"This week has been basically very positive," Sato said, "I have done some mileage and think that the new car is improving all the time. The team is great and I am working well with James, my engineer and Gary Anderson. Really, things are going well at the moment for me.”

Both drivers also carried out practice starts with the team.

Honda know that, despite the work completed, there is still much to be done and progress will have to be continued at the upcoming test sessions. “It's been a tough week as there have been a number of small problems affecting the programmes with both teams, which is not unusual at this time of year," Shuhei Nakamoto, Honda R&D's race and test team manager commented, "There's also been a lot of red flags, so unfortunately we haven't done as many laps as we planned.
"We had one engine failure with BAR, but the cause has been identified and a countermeasure put in place. We are looking forward to a more productive test next week back in Barcelona.”