LONDON :Honda must not allow their current woes on the Formula One racetrack to distract them from their focus on next year, feels team principal Ross Brawn.
The Japanese team, with one of the biggest player in the sport, were overtaken in the constructors’ standings at Sunday’s Belgian Grand Prix by Toro Rosso. It is now ranked ninth overall.

Only Force India and now-defunct Honda-backed Super Aguri, neither of whom have scored any points, rank lower in the table after 13 races.

“It is very frustrating,” feels former Ferrari technical director Brawn. He joined Honda last year and is seen as a frustrated man who could control his anger. “We’ve just got to try and keep our nerve and make sure that we don’t compromise next year at all,” he opened his mind to the press men at Spa. “If we can do things this year which help, then of course we will do. “But I think whether we finish eighth or ninth this year is not as important as making sure that we put on a much stronger performance next season.”

Honda’s Jenson Button finished 15th on Sunday, while Brazilian team mate Rubens Barrichello retired with a gearbox problem just before the half distance.

Neither have been officially confirmed for 2009, when major rule changes could shake up the pecking order among the teams. Honda have been openly courting Renault’s double world champion Fernando Alonso.

Brawn feels that the team should not put any extra effort and development into the current car. “None of the teams out there are stupid. Even the team at the back at the moment, Force India, is running three wind tunnels,” he said.

“It’s a tremendously competitive business. We haven’t taken our eye off the ball with the car but it’s just that our mindset is on next year. “When you do that, you sometimes pay the price. And there are some fundamentals about this car which in my view we can’t put right without rebuilding the car … we have to accept what we’ve got and its very frustrating,” he was seen telling the reporters here.

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