Forsythe faces race against time

The Forsythe Championship Racing team's Honda-powered Swift 011 chassis has struggled during recent pre-season tests.

During the weekend's Homestead test Herta was half a second slower than rookie Takuya Kurosawa's Dale Coyne Racing.

"It's no secret that we're struggling," said Herta, speaking exclusively to Speedvision.

"But we haven't given up by any means. The engineers are working their tails off to try to turn this around."

Tony Brunetti, vice president and general manager of Forsythe Championship Racing, is positive the team will resolve it problems before the opening round of 2000 on March 2000.

"It's self-explanatory that we're in a development program," said Brunetti. "If we have a good, realistic plan and stick to it, then we will, in the end, prosper from that and be successful.

"The biggest thing people have to realise is that all our problems aren't going to be solved overnight. The fact is that we're up against Reynard and Lola - and every time one of their cars runs, they learn.

"We don't have that luxury. There's just one Swift and we have to make every lap count.

"If anyone thought this car was going to come out of the box and be quick, they weren't being realistic.

"One of the problems is that, for whatever reason, there was no data to work from when we started this project, so we were starting from ground zero. So, I want to stress, this takes time."