'New chicken' among reasons for Aguri optimism.

The Super Aguri F1 team is still hoping that it can open its Formula One points account at this weekend's Spanish Grand Prix, despite admitting that it tried to do too much in last week's group test at the Circuit de Catalunya.

The Super Aguri F1 team is still hoping that it can open its Formula One points account at this weekend's Spanish Grand Prix, despite admitting that it tried to do too much in last week's group test at the Circuit de Catalunya.

With both Anthony Davidson and Takuma Sato transcending expectations in qualifying, and the Briton running as high as sixth in Bahrain, the team is hopeful that 2007 will be the year in which it starts scoring points in the top flight, and chief designer Peter McCool sees no reason why that process cannot begin this weekend as F1 returns to a circuit with which all teams are familiar.

"Our goal this year is to score points, [and] it would be great if we managed to achieve that this weekend," he said, "I am pleased that we have been able to continue our rate of performance increase from last year to this - this season we are most definitely not last. That vindicates our determined approach to improve performance, although getting in to Q3 of the qualifying session in Melbourne was an unexpected reward for all our hard work."

SAF1 was among those teams to take advantage of the first group test of the European season at Barcelona last week, where it introduced a whole raft of new developments. Although McCool admits that the team perhaps tried too many new things, he remains optimistic for the weekend.

"In true SAF1 style, we bit off more than we should have done," he confessed, "We have introduced a new carbon gearbox and a comprehensive aero package that includes a revised floor, a new chicken, chimney, T-wing and a whole new rear wing package. It was a shame that the bad weather precluded us from fully optimising this package for the forthcoming race, but I am confident that the hard work of the aero and design departments will be repaid with a good race result."

Despite overloading the data gathered from the four-day test in Barcelona, he was particularly praising of the effort that managed to get all the new parts ready to run at the test.

"It would be easy to look at our nearest on-track rivals and their budgets and be disheartened," he reasoned, "I just want to focus on our performance and nothing else. We have a very small aero and design team that has worked very hard to get where we are, so I hope that we continue to punch above our weight for the rest of the season. Getting points and finishing within the top ten is my personal goal."

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