Super Aguri 'under pressure' to perform

"There is a different pressure on us this year to show that we are actually racing," team founder Aguri Suzuki said on Super Aguri's official website. "We're a small team but we'll give it everything."

The Honda-backed team promised that their 2007 car, to be unveiled in Tokyo on March 12, will be a significant improvement on last year's model.

The late launch, just six days before the season-opening Australian Grand Prix, has been shrouded in mystery, with rivals threatening protests if the new car resembles last year's race-winning Honda too closely.

"We gained a solid foundation in the winter tests," Suzuki told reporters at a Honda function in Tokyo on Monday. "I think we will be able to unveil a higher-level car."

Rivals Spyker and Williams suspect, however, that Super Aguri's new car could simply be a revamped version of the Honda RA106 that Jenson Button drove to victory in Hungary last year.

Super Aguri joined the Formula One grid as the 11th team in 2006 using a revamped version of a four-year-old Arrows.

Japan's Takuma Sato and Briton Anthony Davidson will drive for the team this season.

"We, as a team have higher expectations and I am sure the fans have that too and I would like to race very strongly this year," said Sato.

Davidson added: "I have got to know the team and the car very well through testing and I feel both the team and the car are improving. I will be racing for myself and I really look forward to this year."