“
Honda is the company that produced the first hybrid vehicle in Europe and North America. It's going to introduce a fuel cell vehicle next year; it's got a solar panel company; and as 100 per cent owners of the team Honda wanted to use the car to actually advertise something rather different, something with a bigger cause. The whole idea is really a number of things all come together.”
Turning his attentions back towards the track and the task-in-hand, despite the initial lack of out-and-out pace that has been displayed by the RA107, Fry clearly remains positive the new machine has considerable untapped potential, something he believes the Brackley-based outfit will be well-equipped to exploit as the campaign progresses.
“Our development strategy for this season is almost the reverse of last year's,” the 50-year-old asserted. “Then we started with a car that had all the correct bits on it; it was very fast but frankly we didn't develop it as well as we should have done between its introduction in January and Melbourne.
“This year we decided to turn that strategy on its head and introduce a car that didn't have many of the 2007 parts on it. It had the fundamental chassis obviously, but aerodynamically it was not as well-developed as it might have been.
“What we have introduced now is a car that is in many ways quite radical, and under the skin it has a very high level of change compared to last year. I don't think there is anything on the car that's the same as it was; it's been significantly redesigned in terms of the cooling pack, exhaust system, weight distribution, wheelbase – even the steering wheel is very different to last year, and that all gives us a huge opportunity through the year to develop the car.
