Although team boss Nick Fry fears that it could be four months - that's four months! - before Honda is competitive, Rubens Barrichello remains confident that there could be a marked improvement as early as the French Grand Prix, which takes place at the end of next month.

"I think the car is better than ever," said the Brazilian today. "Obviously the test and the effort that the team is making had to result in some changes, so I think the car is a little bit better, but everyone improved, so we have to put the car on the track and see what it does.

"Although we know where the problem is, it's been very difficult to address," he admitted, "even though the team has been working 24 hours a day, flat out, and I think it will be some time before we can sort out the problems, but we have some upgrades and then we're going to have another for Montreal and then again in France and hopefully by then we will have a competitive car."

Asked if the situation is becoming desperate, the Brazilian replied: "I don't think it's desperation, it's the fact that we need to work together. It doesn't matter if I get out of the car and say this car is bad. They already know what the car is. We have to be very specific about the problems and to translate that to the engineers and those people who work on the aerodynamics of the car. Being very specific will make the car better, so now that the wind tunnel is working well and so on, we can see that the things that are happening on the track are happening in the tunnel as well, which wasn't the case before, so now we are tracking the problem much better."

The former Jordan, Stewart and Ferrari driver refused to add to speculation that the team's new wind tunnel is wrongly calibrated.

"I think the tunnel is too new for us," he said. "I'm not saying it was wrongly calibrated, I think we had to have a better understanding of what it was giving us but right now it's giving us support, so that's why I can say that I am confident that we can sort out the problem."