"The BAR Honda test in Barcelona went quite well," he said this weekend. "There were a few problems, which is usual in the early stages of running a new engine, but the causes were all identified and solutions found and that's what important. We’ve gathered a lot of data and are progressing smoothly.

"We also experienced some problems later in the week at the Jordan Honda tests, which unfortunately restricted our running time.
"However, a complete solution has been found for a serious problem we had at last week’s shakedown, which is an important step forward and we are now focusing on next week’s testing, when we hope to make further progress."

Despite the EJ12 being seem more towards the rear of the timesheets, the Irish team are not too worried at this stage. Following the four day Spanish test Giancarlo Fisichella stated, “our progress has been good and we are very close to our target lap time for the stage we’re at. I’m quite optimistic, but there is a lot of work to do in the next few tests.”

Jordan Honda will now start a three day test at Valencia from the 5th February where, for the first time, the two Honda 2002 challengers will compete on the same circuit.