Honda team boss Nick Fry has revealed that the Brackley squad will have two unveilings ahead of next season, with the new car being followed, several weeks later, by what he has described as a 'very different' livery.
As has become the norm in recent seasons, Honda will conduct most of its winter testing with a carbon-black 'interim' machine, but Fry has warned that next year's paintscheme will not be what many people are expecting. Even though principal sponsor of the past few years, British American Tobacco, has now left the sport, it had been anticipated that the team would continue to use its white-and-red livery befitting of Honda's Japanese heritage, but Fry claims that a new marketing direction will cause a few raised eyebrows.
"We do not have left any space on the car for next year, even though there will definitely be opportunities for other partners," he told
f1.com, "We have a marketing plan, which will surprise a lot of people and get them interested by our approach for next year. You will not see a car covered in Honda logos, it will be something very different."
Fry confirmed that the 2007 car, expected to continue the current nomenclature and be called RA107, is on target to make it debut sometime next month, but that fans would have to wait until closer to the start of the season for the livery to revealed.
"We will start testing our new car in the third week of January, but our marketing plan and new partners will probably not be presented until the beginning of March," he explained, "So you could say that we will have two launches - one for the car and one for our new marketing concept. Until the presentation of the marketing concept, the car will very likely run all in black."
