Eddie's off to Japan

In testing to date neither team has got within two seconds of the best times set in 2002 challengers and with less than a month to go to Melbourne closing that huge gap will be nigh on impossible.
In the recent test session at Barcelona, the best time set in a 2002 car was a Ferrari powered Sauber at 1:17.891, BAR were the best Honda runner at 1:20.312 with Jordan further back on 1:21.014.

The initial reports suggest that the Honda V10 is some way off the pace of its rivals despite Honda’s comments at Barcelona that things were ‘progressing smoothly’.
The RA002E is a whole new engine, rather than an upgrade on last year’s power plant and it is known that the engineers in Japan are working flat out to try to improve the situation.

As a result, Eddie Jordan has flown off to Tokyo this week for what are believed to be talks with the management of Honda.
"Eddie travels to meet Honda regularly," said a Jordan spokesperson. "There were several things for discussion at the meeting and the engine programme for 2002 was just one of them.
"It would be fair to say that we would like to see more development from the engine and Honda would recognise that. The engine that is currently testing is a 'pre-production' model. There will be a different unit for the first race."

The Irish team owner might have to give up hope of a good result in the first race or two, but he will be very keen to find out how things are going to improve in the months ahead.