Honda expect to resume their 2006 form

With the team's new RA108 due to be launched at the end of January, hopes are high within the Japanese-owned squad that they will not make the same errors with the design that happened with this year's car.

CEO Nick Fry told autosport.com: "We will have our ups and downs and over a long season; that is inevitable. But I don't see any reason why we cannot get back to where we were at the end of 2006.

"It is the same team of people, with a lot of good extra people on top of that, and the progress with the car looks promising.

"We obviously don't know where other people are, but I don't think it is unreasonable to presume that during the course of 2008 we will be able to get back to where we were in 2006 - which is going to races with full confidence that we can score points."

New team principal Ross Brawn only arrived at the team at the start of December so has had little input into the RA108, but he is encouraged by what he has seen so far.

"It's a very intelligent response to what the team faced in 2007," he said. "A lot of the guys from within the company realised the difficulties they had. There's been some new people brought in, but there's a lot of existing people addressing the issues we've had.

"Everything I've seen that's been done for next year has been an intelligent approach.

"I don't have the hands-on references perhaps I would have had in the past, but that will come during the year as I understand more about the car and how it's working."