By Phil Huff
February 22 2007

Honda Racing F1 aren't quite as quick as they should be, says Jenson Button, saying that the RA107 is "quite a long way off the pace." Speaking before testing in Bahrain today, Jenson Button wasn't oozing confidence, asking Autosport the rhetorical question "Will we be there at the first race with a car that's as quick as the Renault, Ferrari and McLaren? I don't know.

"I would rather the car was quicker - that's everyone's opinion because we're not on the pace of the top teams, which is disappointing," continued the Brit. "The positive thing is that we've moved forward a lot with the car and there's a lot more coming in Bahrain."

But how does the RA107 compare to last years car, the car that took Jenson to a win at Hungary?

"It's a step forward from last year's car, which is positive," he explains, "but when we arrived at the Valencia test we weren't quite where we thought we would be. The biggest problem was that we couldn't find a balance at all and were quite a long way off the pace."

Team mate Rubens Barrichello is also uncertain about the car, avoiding making any claims about race wins. "It needs time because it's a different approach from last year's car," commented the Brazilian. "When you change a small thing on the car it gives you a better answer but the car has a bad habit of losing rear grip when you turn into a corner.

"I don't believe it is a bad car though, and I think it will do good things. Whether it is going to win races or not, we're going to see."