The team confirmed the project during the Italian Grand Prix weekend, and revealed that South African Alan van der Merwe would be the man at the wheel, rather than Briton James Rossiter, as had been initially rumoured.

Interested in finding out just how fast an F1 car can travel were it taken away from the confines of a race circuit, the team has set about developing a car to cope with the increased speeds thought achievable on the Utah salt flats. However, despite being slightly modified for the event, the car will remain a 'track legal' version of the current Honda-powered 007. It has been classed as a 'Lakester' in order to fall into the established speed record categories, being deemed an 'open wheel car of special construction. It's three-litre Honda engine drops it into the 'unblown gas lakester' category.


"There is a degree of madness about it," BAR sporting director Gil de Ferran admitted, "When you go to a place like Bonneville, it's easy to see why people used to think the world was flat, that you could fall off the edge..."

Formula One's current speed 'record' sits at around 372kph, which McLaren's Juan Pablo Montoya registered in testing at Monza last week, but van der Merwe, who tests occasionally with BAR, was being geared to take that mark as close to 400kph as possible. In order to prepare himself for the record attempt, the South African will consult former outright land speed record holder Richard Noble, whose Thrust supersonic car - driven by Andy Green - reached 1220kph.

"To imagine a Formula One car running [at Bonneville] is bizarre, totally offbeat," he told Reuters, "But that's what this is all about. It's a challenge for us all."

The Bonnevile Salt Flats in Utah, where BAR test driver Alan van der Merwe had aimed to break the 400kph barrier, are currently under an inch of standing water and will not have sufficiently dried out by the time the attempt is scheduled to take place (October 5-8).

Therefore the BAR-Honda team has been forced to postpone its Formula 1 land speed record attempt because of torrential rain.

“The adverse weather conditions in Bonneville have given us no other option but to postpone the scheduled running of the BAR Honda 067 on the Bonneville Salt Flats," said the team's sporting director Gil de Ferran.

The team insists that the postponement is only a setback and has sent an observation team out to the US to gather information on when best to try again.

"We will be rescheduling our record attempt once our observation team returns to Brackley," said de Ferran.

"But we are determined to get back out to Utah again as soon as possible.”

This is a short term disappointment to the team, but the very nature of attempting to run a car at speeds in excess of 400 km/h on a natural surface means it is always susceptible to bad weather and were fully prepared for this eventuality.

The car BAR Honda will use for the record attempt, while being slightly modified for the event, is still a track legal BAR Honda 007 – the team's entry in the 2005 FIA Formula One World Championship. At the wheel for the record attempt will be Alan van der Merwe, member of BAR Honda's Young Driver Programme.

The team aim to reach speeds in excess of 400 km/h (248.4 mph)

Watch this thread for updates.