Honda F1 - European GP Preview

The ninth round of the 2002 FIA Formula One World Championship takes Honda and its partner teams, DHL Jordan Honda and Lucky Strike BAR Honda, to Germany for the European Grand Prix at the Nurburgring next weekend where all four drivers will be aiming to achieve the best possible finish.

After collecting points for three races in succession, all courtesy of Jordan man Giancarlo Fisichella, the engine giant head into the next event full of optimism that BAR will finally open their scorecard and Jordan will add more to their slowly increasing tally. Fisichella's three fifth places finishes sees them on six world championship points and ranked sixth overall. Meanwhile BAR continue to be the only team yet to score a very valuable world championship point.

A new spec qualifying engine was meant to introduced for the Canadian Grand Prix held at the Gilles Villeneuve circuit last weekend, however this was unfortunately delayed due to the fact that at that stage, it wasn't considered reliable enough. Now after further testing it has been decided that the new engine will come into play at the Nurburgring.

"We had a strong race in Canada and managed to get the most out of our engine during the weekend," said Shuhei Nakamoto - Race and Test Team Manager, Honda Racing Development. "Since then, we have been working to improve the reliability for the race in Germany. We will be introducing the new spec engine for Friday and for qualifying on Saturday."

Honda's localization in Europe has been in progress for many years and, today, it carries out local production of automobiles and power products, develops models specifically for the European market and exports from Europe to the Middle East, Africa, North America and other regions. Right-hand-drive Civic Type-Rs are even exported from the UK to Japan. There are currently around 8,000 Honda employees in Europe and more than 125,000 people working for Honda globally.