Honda boss chasing solid start.

New Honda team principal Ross Brawn insists the Brackley-based squad will be taking it one race at a time when the Formula 1 season kicks off next weekend at Albert Park in Melbourne.

The team goes into the new season looking to rebound from a difficult 2007 season that yielded just six points and a hugely disappointing eight place in the constructors' championship - coming on the back of a 2006 that had seen the team take its first win and emerge as a serious contender to the likes of McLaren and Ferrari.

However, the new RA108 hasn't exactly shone in pre-season testing with the team not making much of an impression towards the top end of the timesheets. leading to suggestions that 2008 could be another difficult campaign.

Indeed, Jenson Button has already urged fans not to expect too much from the early races of the season as Honda attempts to close the gap to its rivals and Brawn admitted that it was one step at a time as the team looks to get the most it can from the new car.

"We have a very talented group of people in the team, whose collective expertise is good enough to succeed in Formula One," he said, "and I have every faith that we will. For now though we must continue to take it one step at a time and our first goal is to improve the RA108 at every race.

"We've made steady progress with the RA108 since its launch at the end of January. Practically all of the aerodynamic and mechanical parts have been updated and when we ran our Melbourne-spec package for the first time last week, we saw some positive changes to the performance of the car.

"We now have to see what that improvement equates to on the race track and relative to the competition."