BAR looks to the future

The British American Racing team is doing its best to put on a positive front in the face of a disasterous start to the season

With the Honda-powered BAR 004 struggling to be competitive and new team boss David Richards slimming down and restructuring the engineering department, the team does not have high expectations for this weekend's Brazilian Grand Prix. But Richards and his drivers Jacques Villeneuve and Olivier Panis reckon that improvements should be made as the year progresses.

Richards said: "We have to balance the necessity to improve performance in the short-term whilst making the changes required to deliver our long-term goals. I am confident that we now have a stable base from which we can start building for the future, but we still have a long way to go."

Villeneuve added: "This has been a difficult and disappointing start to the season, but I am confident that the changes mean we will be heading in the right direction, although only time will tell. There is no point looking back, we now have to look forward and work on improving the car and whole way we operate.

"We aren't expecting to see any massive improvements in Brazil but hopefully by Imola the results will start to show."

For more details on Richards' changes at BAR, see this week's AUTOSPORT magazine, on sale today (Thursday).