MARCH 26, 2002

A dull day for Fukuda

Young drivers may get excited about driving a Formula 1 car but two days going up and down the runways at the Elvington aerodrome in Yorkshire might have become a little bit dull for Japan's Ryo Fukuda, one of the test drivers of British American Racing.

YOUNG drivers may get excited about driving a Formula 1 car but two days going up and down the runways at the Elvington aerodrome in Yorkshire might have become a little bit dull for Japan's Ryo Fukuda, one of the test drivers of British American Racing.

The work is however very valuable for the aerodynamic department at BAR (or what is left of it after the recent purge) as it will provide important data so that the team can verify that the windtunnel results are the same as those coming from the car. This is often the reason for poor aerodynamic performance in F1 and so it is essential for BAR to discover if the calibration of its windtunnel in Brackley is correct.

Once that has been established the new aerodynamic team can work on improving the performance of the car. With Honda working hard to make the engines much more competitive, the work could lead to a significant improvement later in the year although it could be that the BAR 04 chassis cannot be much improved and the team will have to wait for next year's 05 to make any major progress.

Only time will tell.