Spyker pleased with new car progress

Spyker, who took over the Midland team last year to race under its own name, have revised hopes for 2007, thanks to several changes like the signing of Mike Gascoyne as technical chief and a deal with Ferrari to use their engines.

Although the team have not tested as much as some of their rivals, Key says he is pleased with their progress so far.

"We realised the task we had ahead of us, but we have made a lot of progress in a very short space of time," said Key.

"The car has demonstrated excellent reliability, we haven't experienced any fundamental issues in any areas so far, when we set the car up in various ways it responds as expected so in general there have been no big surprises to date.

"The aero platform seems stable and the engine is performing well. We naturally have a few areas to work on, but as a basis, the new car seems to be proving itself well."

Spyker, along with Williams, are the only team who did not travel to Bahrain for last week's test at the Sakhir circuit. Both teams will also miss this week's session to test at Barcelona instead.

"This time in Barcelona we hope to work purely on performance and development and try out some new parts and ideas including aerodynamic tweaks, a few chassis refinements and the control systems," Key added.

"I think we're on target with the goals we set ourselves, but we'll have to see how the findings from Valencia transfer to a different track. However with the work we did last week we're in much better shape than we were a few weeks ago."