What does it take to become a champion team? A good car, an experienced driver pair, a good support team and an inspired team leader. Super Aguri have none of this. That the team was formed to keep Takuma Sato in F1 is no secret and the agenda seems to be largely the same even after two years of existence. The team is currently facing financial strife and despite offers of bailing them out from various corners, they have refused because all of these suitors wanted better drivers.

Super Aguri hasn’t improved much over the last year and it’s unlikely that would make many strides this season either. Anthony Davidson showed greater improvement than Takuma Sato who looks happy to just be driving a Formula 1 car. It is ironic that a team that could have had such a great future chooses to stay below average.

The kind of conflicting reports emanating from Super Aguri are just the kind of thing that they have done to ensure that they don’t get any better. There is in fact a cloud of doubt over the team’s spot on the 2008 grid. The team has been in talks with Honda and it is yet unclear whether these talks have yielded anything. Super Aguri’s director Daniel Audetti, though thinks everything is fine. He said, “Everything is progressing in the right direction. The team are preparing the car for the Australian Grand Prix.”

The pre-season testing hasn’t been anything to write home about. If the indications so far is anything to go by, Force India could move forward leaving Super Aguri at the bottom. The car isn’t making any significant strides forward neither are the drivers. Takuma Sato isn’t getting younger and Davidson isn’t learning how to go faster more consistently.

What Super Aguri really needs is a boost of confidence. That’s going to come when they can stop worrying about money and how they are going to make it to the next race. The team is putting up a brave face in light of all the questions being raised whether they will really make it to the grid on March 16, but even if they do, so what?

It isn’t in our nature to write off a team so soon, but honestly, they are just making up the numbers right now. Unless they really have something to show in the first race that hasn’t come out so far, the season will be spent as “also-rans” yet again.