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Senna under no illusions about Honda

Bruno Senna says he would have no qualms about making his debut with Honda Racing should the team survive, even though he would potentially arrive at the Australian Grand Prix with no testing in the new car

The Brazilian was being evaluated by Honda before the manufacturer pulled out of Formula One and put its team up for sale, and has been strongly linked to a drive alongside Jenson Button if a management buy-out succeeds.

Although the team have yet to secure a deal to either guarantee their future or sign Senna, the former GP2 front-runner is now pinning all his hopes on Honda.

He said he was under no illusions about the scale of the task he would face if he joined them.

"It would certainly be a big challenge: I think no driver in the last few years has had his F1 debut with so little testing mileage," Senna told Autosprint. "However, it's always better to be in F1, even under difficult conditions, than to be out of it. To race in GP2 for another season would have been useless for me.

"It would be a difficult debut, I know, but initially there won't be big pressure or expectations, because at the moment no-one considers the ex-Honda squad a top team.

"So the pressure would be less and I'll eventually adapt in a quicker and easier way. At least I can say I know the (Melbourne) track, having already raced and won there in Australian F3."

Senna is adamant that he cannot afford to miss out on any F1 opportunities - even if the car was not competitive.

"To race in F1 you need to grab all chances with both hands, even when they look very difficult, because you may get no more of them after that," he said.

He admitted that he would be unlikely to get much - if any - testing before Melbourne if he joined Honda, but is confident that the team will be well-prepared.

"Let's just say that, if before the Australian GP I managed to run for at least three, four days, doing about 1,200 kms, then that'd be a dream," said Senna.

"Since Honda announced its retirement, the team have carried on working. Maybe not as intensively as they would have had Honda kept going, but the technicians have nevertheless carried on with the project of the new car according to schedule."

Senna added that he no longer had any links to Toro Rosso, who had previously been considered a likely team for the Brazilian due to his close ties with former co-owner Gerhard Berger.

"During the winter, when talks were ongoing, I got the impression that Toro Rosso were more interested in surviving rather than building something important for the future," he said.

"I was disappointed with their way of dealing: they were only interested in the budget, while before committing I wanted to test in order to get to know and evaluate the car and the team, to see if there was chemistry between us.

"Talks progressively died out after Berger left the team. At that point, without him, my interest in racing for that team went down to zero completely."

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