Honda first to run KERS in car

Although most teams are still finalising their concepts and working on the devices on test dynos, Honda's team principal Ross Brawn revealed at the Turkish Grand Prix that his team have already taken to the track with theirs.

When asked by autosport.com about the timetable for running the new systems in a car, Brawn said: "We've run it on a car for the first time. Not at a very high level but we've got it functioning."

Brawn would not expand on when the KERS had run, however, saying only that it was "recently."

The news of Honda's first test comes against the backdrop of further discussions between team principals over the Turkish weekend about the long-term future direction of KERS technology.

There was a lengthy meeting between a majority of team bosses on Force India boss Vijay Mallya's boat the Indian Empress on Friday night, as teams discussed the financial implications of developing KERS over the next few years.

Brawn believes, however, that accepting KERS is the correct way forward for F1 - and wholly relevant for car manufacturers involved in the sport.

"In some ways I can understand the contradiction of cost-cutting and then introducing technologies which are quite expensive," he said. "But for manufacturers like ourselves the technology has become relevant again, so it is valuable from that perspective.

"But there is this difficult balance of we want to give it enough performance to make it worthwhile, but if it has too much performance then it becomes compulsory and the small teams struggle. I am not quite sure where the balance is.

"We need to start running it to see what equilibrium we have got, and then see if we need to broaden the regulations to give it more potential advantage."