Wednesday morning, July 19th 2006. A special moment for the fans of Super Aguri F1 Team lucky enough to be next to the new car, the SA06.

A few of us have been invited along to see the testing of the car which is together for the first time. We are there as a 'thank you' for work we did with the team earlier in the year. An honour indeed.

England is in the middle of another heatwave, so no worries about rain spoiling our day. This was it, finally we would be seeing the fruits of the teams labour in all it's glory.

The SA05 had done it's job - gotten SAF1 and their drivers a respect seldom seen by new teams in their first season. Taku had wrung the very best from a four year old chasis and a gear box which was several centimetres too high. A car that will be held in our memories as a real notable was now consigned to the storage bays. Now is the time of the SA06!

And there it was. The hopes of thousands of loyal fans around the world, a red and white glory. It's not just the gearbox that has changed - there are hundreds of parts which have metamorphasised into a new shape and a higher specification.

Most of what is new is hidden under the new body shape, but they are there. The car looks familiar, but sharper and cleaner than the ancestors. A lot of that is down to a superior paint job, and a better mid-body shape.

They have shed a LOT of weight - but I won't say how much here because that kind of information is actually still sensitive between the teams *wink*. . . . xxx Note xxx Today (21st July) the team announced that they had saved 20 kg. To give you some idea of what that means, it is the usual allowance for luggage on an airplane. That heavy suitcase is about 20 kg! Imagine being able to save that, eh?

Don't get too excited though - the proportion of that 20 kg that would make the car underweight has to be put back as balast so that the car remains within the rules (no 2 race ban wanted for this team!) ... but what that means is that the team gets to choose where the balast goes, to suit the race requirements. So that improves the handling. Up until now the weight was just there, not moveable, not tweekable.

It is ready and waiting for the first test drive - and so are we. The excitement can be seen, felt, around each of the fans. This is a moment we want to savour.

The makeshift garage goes from an erie silence only interupted by the occaisional harsh chink of tool against tarmac, to a cacophony of revolutions of a Honda V8 power plant. If you have never heard an F1 engine (or maybe I should write "If you have never felt an F1 engine...") up close, it is difficult to believe just how loud, and how affecting they are. If you are still reading this account, I know that you would be smiling as much as we were...

An almost silent clunk and the car is armed. Like an intercontinental missile, it is slowly pointed away from the silo and ... ROAR ! ... it's off!

Unlike the weapons of mass destruction that missiles are, this is a tool of pure joy and awe. A pilot sits within pressing pedals and buttons to guide it to the destination. OK, this time it is only a blast around an empty track at Silverstone - but it is a vision of things to come. Soon, it will be a race and soon, it will be a challenge to the other teams.

An almost seamless gear box, lower, lighter and yet more suited than the previous (brilliant) version used ... how does it feel? What kind of difference when changing up and down around some of the fastest corners of one of the fastest tracks? We asked the only man who knows:

"It feels very good, and very smooth. It is a big improvement and similar to the BAR Honda gearbox last year " said Taku.

A stiffer car, better aerodynamics, lower centre of gravity ... do they give you more around the corners? Does it feel very different to the last car?

"It feels like a different car, I am very excited. Hockenheim should be good fun! " said Taku.

What will this mean to the track time? At Indionapolis Taku had a great quallifying and a great race chance - will these improvements make positional advantages at Hockenheim? We wanted a team viewpoint so we sought out Kevin Lee and asked him...

"We all hope that these developments will put us ahead of a couple of cars " said Mr Lee... So let's wait and see.

You will all know how much is riding on this car, a team of 150 people against enormous teams and even bigger budgets. Can SAF1 really impact on them? If this test is anything to go by, my call is "Yes" they can - but then testing and racing is like flour and cake. Related, included, but so far apart as to be almost meaningless.

That didn't stop us enjoying every second. The car sounded and performed crisper, smoother, faster (ok, that last bit is not proven yet, but it looked fast to me, hee hee).

The testing continues and Sakon has a go tomorrow.

We wished Taku and Sakon all the very best for Hockenheim, and I told them to "Stuff it to 'em" , which both drivers promised to do.

Act 2; scene 1 complete, car exits stage left ...

Act 3; scene 1 "The SA06" (car revs loudy off stage and MF1 team members are seen to look nervously over shoulder)...