"It's been pretty exciting for us because we've made a change to Dallara for the first time [on a road course]," the driver noted, "It's been a lot of work for us - the others have gotten to be pretty quick!"

Meira was also happy to be on track and preparing for the 2007 campaign, having made a late start to 2006 with Panther.

"Staying in the car is important, especially at tracks that we will get to race at next year," the Brazilian said, having finished a best of the rest fifth overall behind the dominant Penske and Ganassi drivers in the regular season, "It's a little bit of a head start for next year. Every new venue we go to, there are a lot of new things to find out and that's a lot of fun."

Honda's engineers were pleased with the latest engine's first test on 100 per cent ethanol.

"The day went very well for us," said HPD technical leader Roger Griffiths, "I haven't seen the mileage figures yet, but all four drivers ran the entire day without any significant mechanical issues with either the old engine or the new 3.5-litre ethanol-fuelled engine. Despite the high temperatures and humidity, there were no heat issues with the new engine, either. Based on the information gathered today, we are going to make a few fuel-mapping adjustments to the ethanol-fuelled engines this evening, and then we'll be all ready to go tomorrow."