Rivals critical of Honda testing approach

Honda Racing have been criticised for their approach to last week's Formula One test at Barcelona after they got Super Aguri to undertake young driver evaluation, this week's Autosport reports

Teams are limited to a maximum of 30,000 kilometres of running, and the Japanese manufacturer's rivals felt that Honda Racing managed to conserve their own tally last week by getting Super Aguri to run their car.

Honda wanted to run young drivers Andreas Zuber, Luca Filippi and Mike Conway in one of their RA107 cars at the test, and so got Super Aguri to try them out. It meant the drivers' running had no impact on Honda's mileage allocation for the year.

Force India team boss Colin Kolles was one team boss who was left angry at what had happened.

He told Autosport: "We have a testing agreement and they (Honda) are simply not following it."

Honda Racing have currently completed the most distance out of any team - with 25,714 kilometres under their belt according to the statistics. They are ahead of Renault (25,351 km), BMW Sauber (25,095 km) and McLaren (25,075 km).

Teams are keen to ensure they have the maximum amount of mileage available for the final test of the year in Jerez next month.

Honda have denied any wrongdoing, however.

Honda's head of advanced research Jacky Eeckelaert said: "Honda Motors asked Super Aguri to do this test using RA107 chassis. The programme is run by Super Aguri but it's one of our cars from this year."