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Super Aguri set to run new rear wing

Super Aguri hope to introduce a new rear wing design for the final two races of the season, having been unable to run it at Spa-Francorchamps last weekend because it had not passed factory safety tests

The team endured a troubled weekend in Belgium when they failed to hook up their SA07 to the low-grip track conditions, and found themselves unable to find a good downforce setting with the wings they had available.

Despite those difficulties prompting wild conspiracy theories that the team were ordered not to use the right wing packages by sister team Honda Racing, Super Aguri's technical director Mark Preston has said the truth of the matter is not so exciting.

"I suppose it is an interesting excuse for our performance drop, but we were just not very good over the whole weekend," he told autosport.com about what happened to Super Aguri at Spa.

"I think a lot of it was to do with the tyres. A lot of people were struggling with their rubber and I think that is why you could see a lot of people messing around with downforce levels. We really didn't get a handle on the tyres until the race."

Preston said that matters were not helped by the team being unable to run a new wing design that they had hoped to introduce for the Belgian race.

"The wing hadn't passed off the necessary procedures back at base, so we had to come up with an aerodynamic solution at the track to get a bit of drag off what we had available," he said.

"We did a loading test (on the new design) back at the factory and were not happy with some of the results, so we didn't take it to the track. It was originally supposed to come to Monza for the last day of testing, but it missed the Monza test.

"It is still coming through the system and we hope it will show up in either Shanghai or Interlagos."

Preston made it clear that another type of rear wing tried out at the Spa test in July was never intended to be used at the Belgian Grand Prix.

When asked whether or not Super Aguri had ever been told by Honda what they could or could not bring to races, Preston said: "No. We're a racing team. Everybody was really frustrated about it (the wing).

"We took a lot of flak over it, and I think it is a similar sort of situation to last year when we couldn't bring the new car out. I think a little bit of the situation is to do with our budget."

Super Aguri have made no secret of the fact that non-payment of sponsorship money owed to them by oil company SS United has affected their budget, and forced them to hold back on development plans.

Preston is upbeat that the Spa weekend will be put down to just a one-off experience, though, and that the team can return to the form that has helped them to a current seventh place in the constructors' championship in Japan next weekend.

"Hopefully with hotter weather we won't have so much trouble with tyres," he said. "It is amazing how not being in the window hurts you. I cannot put enough importance on arriving at the track and things going to plan."

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