JANUARY 17, 2005

Honda remains a member of the anti-testing alliance

British American Racing Honda is ready to accept a restriction of 30 days of testing. This ends speculation that the Japanese giant was trying to get out of the deal agreed by all the teams except Ferrari about restricting testing in the future. Honda did ask for the agreed total to be increased from 24 to 30 days but all nine teams are in agreement with that. Ferrari remains against the idea although we will see what happens in the next few days as there is to be a meeting of the F1 teams (without Ferrari) on January 25 and there will then be a meeting of all the teams with FIA president Max Mosley on January 29. At this meeting it is anticipated that Mosley will propose more cost-cutting measures, such as the standardisation of certain parts and bans on more exotic types of material.

There are hopes that Ferrari will agree to accept a testing restriction in order to save money but given the Italian team's intransigence to date it may not be that simple as Ferrari does not wish to give away its advantage. Ferrari is trying to save money at the moment but does not want to back down to the other teams on this issue.