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Aguri to run a modified Honda car in 2007

Super Aguri are set to run next season a modified version of this year's Honda Racing RA106, autosport.com has learned

The team have spent weeks considering their options for 2007 after an F1 Commission meeting in Paris in September all but scuppered their original plans to run the actual RA106 next season.

Despite the setback, Super Aguri's managing director Daniel Audetto insisted that their 2007 car would be the most competitive they could get 'within the existing regulations'.

Those plans for next year appear to still be based around the RA106, after Super Aguri turned up for the first day of winter testing at Barcelona today with a new interim chassis that looks almost identical to this year's Honda Racing car.

The car, which is called a Super Aguri, has been produced with increased assistance from Honda - who are keen to do everything they can to help the new outfit.

Audetto told autosport.com: "This is the car we will use until the SA07 is ready at the beginning of next year - probably at the beginning of February. We will use the information from this car on the 07."

Although the team have not fully confirmed their strategy, it appears that to run their version of the RA106 they will exploit the same loophole in F1's regulations that allowed Scuderia Toro Rosso to run a modified version of the 2005 Red Bull RB1 this year.

Toro Rosso were able to do so because the car parts had been designed by an independent supplier and not a rival team.

FIA president Max Mosley said earlier this year, when commenting about the Toro Rosso situation: "My understanding is that with Ford/Jaguar, the parts were, for some obscure reason to do with tax and the internal structure of the Ford Motor Company, designed and built by a company that was not the racing team.

"If the parts are designed and manufactured by another company, and you own the intellectual property rights of the car that requires them, then it is completely legitimate.

"The thing you can't do is if you're Williams you can't run a McLaren front wing. But both Williams and McLaren could run a Lola front wing."

Audetto has confirmed that Super Aguri will be leading the design process and assembling the car themselves - but that there had been input from Honda and that an independent party was involved in the design process.

"There is more collaboration from Honda and the engineers are the same from Honda," he said. "There is also more collaboration from Tochigi (Honda's R&D facility). You can see already that we have more support. We are looking forward to having a much better car for 2007."

When asked whether the SA07 would be a completely new design or one based on the RA106, Audetto said: "It started with more collaboration from Honda, although the design is managed by us.

"With a lot of support from Tochigi we constructed a monocoque and we assembled it in Leafield. There is an external consultancy firm involved in the process."

Super Aguri's plans to run a modified RA106 will be a massive boost to the team and their drivers Takuma Sato and Anthony Davidson, who can now expect increased competitiveness throughout 2007.

Sato starred in the season-closing Brazilian Grand Prix with a tenth placed finish in the modified 2002 Arrows.

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