By Phil Huff
June 22 2006

As revealed last week, Honda Racing F1's technical director Geoffrey Willis won't be attending any forthcoming races in a bid to improve the disappointing performance of the Honda RA106, amid other changes within the team. "Geoff won't be at as many races in the next few months as he has been," said Nick Fry recently. "I want him to focus on the aerodynamics of the car and get the maximum we can possibly get at the wind tunnel in the shortest amount of time. Aerodynamics is an area where we are not as strong as we should be.

"It's only now when we are starting to get the same level of infrastructure as the other top teams," continued Fry. "Our full-size wind tunnel is just coming on stream now. Some people accuse us of spending a lot of money but the money that we are spending is effectively to catch up. At least half the grid have had a full size wind tunnel for a substantial period of time."

Jacky Eeckelaert

The wind tunnel, costing the team around £30 million, has started producing results, with the first developments expected to appear on the car in the Canadian Grand Prix, just over a week away. Willis' current role at the races will be taken by Sauber refugee Jacky Eeckelaert, freeing up valuable time for the tech chief.

At Sauber, Eeckelaert was responsible for engineering Kimi Raikkonen, before progressing to head of track engineering for the Swiss based team.

Shuhei Nakamoto, Honda Racing F1's engineering director, explained to autosport.com that "Geoff did not have enough time to concentrate on the development areas, so we have to make time for him. Everyone has to help each other with this because we are one team. Before it was too much work for Geoff. He had to do everything and it was too much."

"The car itself we believe to be very good in lots of ways but there are specific areas that we think need improvement," added Nick Fry, "and asking Geoff to focus on one of those that happens to be a specialist subject if you like, his Mastermind Specialist subject, is the best thing to do."

With speculation mounting that some senior faces at the Brackley squad could be forced out in the coming months, should performances not improve, the changes are a sign that steps are being taken to keep pushing ahead. However, Honda have refused to rule out further changes within the team.