Bigois' early arrival a boost for Honda

Bigois had not been expected to start at the Japanese manufacturer until later this year, but discussions between Honda and the Frenchman's former employers Williams have led to an early release from his contract.

And Fry is hopeful that Bigois's impact, allied to former BMW Sauber man John Owen's arrival at the end of this month, will deliver immediate improvements.

"You don't hire people without expecting them to deliver some goods," said Fry. "Clearly there is a limit to what we can do with this year's car, but when you are hiring people of the standard of all the guys we have hired I hope they can contribute pretty quick."

Fry, who said that there had been a "good level of negotiation and cooperation has taken place between the two teams", was adamant that Honda would still work on improving this year's car rather than write off this season.

"I don't think we would ever write off a season," he said. "The first year I was with BAR we wrote off the season because the car was so awful and the resources were so limited.

"I am completely realistic, and would not battle on if I thought it would significantly damage next year, but we are a team now where we can do both. My job is to balance both.

"Obviously we want to work hard on next year's car and no matter how hard we do work on this car it is never going to be a Ferrari. It has got fundamental design characteristics that would not allow it to be a Ferrari, so we have to put resources into resolving those things and make sure those are right for next year.

"But the hang on parts can be improved and I have no doubt we can continue to improve the performance.

"There are four teams ahead of us who we did not deserve to beat today and frankly my view is that given the equipment the team have got I think we overachieved today. The operational performance of the team was second to none, absolutely first class."