Fry sure Honda can fight for wins

The team had been expected to join the fight at the front of the field for last weekend's season-opener, but a clutch problem for Jenson Button and gearbox issues for Rubens Barrichello left them off the podium.

Despite that disappointment, however, Fry is sure that their RA106 is as good as the Ferrari and Renault cars that dominated the Sakhir event.

"We are convinced that the car is as good as those two and in Malaysia, where the weather is even warmer, we are going to be stronger still," said Fry. "So far the analysis shows that the cooling on our car is extremely good, so we don't go to Malaysia with any worries whatsoever.

"All Bahrain demonstrates is that between the top four teams you cannot afford to have any issues whatsoever. I don't think we are lacking in any specific area but it shows that one tiny thing has got to go wrong and you are not going to be able to compete.

"Just a quick analysis of the race shows that through the combination of the botched start and the time Jenson subsequently lost in traffic he lost about 17 seconds, so we would have been up there with the first two which was what we were aiming for this weekend."

Fry believes that he has seen nothing from the race-dominating Renault and Ferrari teams that give him any reason to believe Honda Racing need to do some catching up.

"All of our analysis which we did before the race showed that for Jenson, Michael and Fernando you could not split them as to who was going to win. They were identical and the strategy tools we use are fairly accurate and really it just kept saying that those three have an equal chance.

"Clearly two of them didn't have any problems and they ended up within a gnats whisker of each other, so without any problems the car can clearly do it and the drivers can do it too."

Fry is also confident that the team are on top of the clutch issue that wrecked Button's start and scuppered his chances of fighting for victory.

"We know what was wrong," he said. "The clutch had some minor oscillations which we have seen before. We know how the fix it but the clutch is an area with these cars where all the teams have had issues.

"The hydraulic pressure was moving slightly, so when he released the clutch nothing happened initially and when it did go the rear wheels spun. It didn't make any difference during the race but by the time we reached the first corner the damage was done.

"The competition this year is going to be so close that a second won or lost here or there will make the difference between who is going to win the race, and it is going to be as simple as that.

"We are clearly disappointed, but in some ways being disappointed with fourth place demonstrates the expectations for this season."