Grapevine: Honda fall just short of 400km/h

Since last Tuesday, the team and their driver Alan van der Merwe had broken the FIA class world records three times, and the South African driver went even faster on his final attempt.

He ended with an average speed of 397.360km/h over two runs of the Bonneville flying mile.

The new record was nearly 4km/h quicker than yesterday, but just around 3km/h shy of the original target of 400km/h.

"I think in general the feeling is satisfaction with what we achieved," said van der Merwe. "It would have been nice to have a round number for the record and we are only two and half ks off that.

"In fact, we know we did everything possible to the car; we timed it exactly right today with the weather and we're pretty sure we couldn't have got more out of it, possibly another kilometre an hour but we would have needed freakishly good weather to do that.

"So, yeah, I'm really happy and slightly relieved as well, because it has been really stressful, every day, and we now know we have had the best day possible to run the car. And also the fact that the team did really well - the first thing to let go was the car; Altogether its been great to set the record and very rewarding to reach 400km/h, its been a great week"

Bonneville 400 Technical Director Gary Savage added: "Today we went racing, this is the racing truth isn't it? The only thing there is, is the stop watch, no excuses, no nothing, you just go for it.

"The team were fantastic they did everything on the car to get it to go quicker. We did hit 400 for one of our runs, we did 399km/h for another and our average is 397km/h so it's pretty good really."