Willis Says There's More to Come from BAR

Geoffrey Willis, the BAR-Honda technical director, promised there is more to come from his rapidly improving team after their promising performance in the season-opening Australian Grand Prix.

The BAR drivers, Jacques Villeneuve and Jenson Button, started from sixth and eighth on the grid but finished in ninth and tenth positions respectively after a radio problem saw them pitting on the same lap.

Willis believes their performance in Australia did not reflect their true form.

"We definitely did not extract the full potential of our package this weekend," said Willis. "It's difficult to pull the bones out of it at this stage but we clearly have to work out how we could have done things better."

The Brackley-based team were one of the six who chose to opt for unlimited testing during the season rather than participate in Friday morning's two-hour test session. Willis admitted that the extra running would have been useful to develop data for the track and the car in preparation for the single-lap qualifying sessions and the race itself.

"One big problem was not having enough running time on Friday because we never got an accurate picture of the life of the tyres," said Willis. "But the good thing is the car's pace on Friday was quick and both drivers finished the race."