“Simon is great in that capacity because he knows what he wants, has so much experience driving so many different cars, and he knows the Sebring track inside and out,” he said. “He was very comfortable with the car and the track, has a lot of experience driving turbo cars—especially diesel-fueled ones, and he was very particular about what he wants the engine to do and how he wanted it to respond. He had all kinds of ideas—let’s try this, let’s try that, and so on—which is great for us to help push the program forward.

“Compared to Takuma, who had never driven a turbocharged racing car, it was interesting to get the two different types of engine feedback from the two of them. It gave us a very good reference point.”

From his days in F3 to F1, and even in the IndyCar Series, Sato’s point of reference on racing engines and their characteristics had come from naturally-aspirated powerplants, which meant using Honda’s 2.2-liter turbocharged V6 would be a rather educational experience.

Sato got his first taste of the DW12 and HPD turbo power at Sebring. (HPD)

“It’s a small capacity engine and it’s turbocharged, and it was the first time I drove a racing engine like this in my life,” he said. “It was interesting to see how all the controls work, all the programming works, the boost, the gauges and everything else.”

Once he’d come to grips with the new chassis and powerplant, Sato was able to enjoy himself a bit.

“This was such an important test for Honda, but having said that, I had the opportunity to feel the car and I was driving very cautiously to begin with, but once I got more confidence, I started to drive at racing pace and push it hard,” he said. “We had the opportunity to try different setups to get the taste of how the car reacts. That’s the only way to show the performance of the car. Sometimes, OK, you got a little bit of wheelspin, but it was fun to drive. It was a productive day.”

The lack of torque found with the new turbo engines has been a steady source of complaints, but Griffiths said it wasn’t an issue in his camp at Sebring.

“I was looking at the throttle traces from Takuma driving and there was plenty of wheelspin,” he said. “The car was moving around a bit. That’s what we want.”

The topic of adding more power, as Griffiths reveals, has died down rather heavily within the series and the IndyCar Engine Committee, which should help to cement the boost and RPM levels teams will use once they begin testing next month.

“There hasn’t been any more talk of needing more power,” he said. “I had quite a long chat with one of my counterparts at GM, and we kind of concluded that to us, if we’re racing at Indy at 215 mph rather than 225, it really doesn’t matter as long as the racing is good. If the racing is poor, and we’re slow, then that’s obviously a problem. But if it takes us three years to get back up to 225, so what? At the end of the day, it’s a number.

“If the car is difficult to drive, that’s good. That means the good drivers will do well and the drivers that aren’t as good won’t do as well. If [the DW12] is right at its performance limit to start, what are we going to do with it for the next five years? We’d be starting off right where we just ended up with the previous car.”

Griffiths also sees the opportunity for savvy teams to take the fight to Ganassi and Penske if they can solve the DW12’s rather complex performance puzzle.

“The complaints about the last car—it was too easy to drive, you could do anything you wanted with it, there was nothing left to try on the car, that the engineers were left to just change springs and dampers—are gone now. There’s a lot of development to get the most out of the car now. If it was a benign car that everybody could easily understand, the top two or three teams would jump out to another big lead.

“I think that a small team with a sharp group of engineers and a good driver can genuinely surprise next year. It has some quirks to it, it isn’t simple to understand, it’s temperamental, and it will bite you if you don’t respect it… It will be fast on the road courses, and we’ll see where we start off at on the ovals, but it’s not a car that’s easily solved.”

In the meantime, the Chevrolet and Honda test teams will download what they learned from Sebring and what they’d like to see improved on the McLaren ECU.

“McLaren have a web portal where they request the manufacturers post all feedback and they look at it daily,” said Phillips. “Any updates required are returned as soon as possible. We’ll slowly bring on-line any alternate shifting strategies that are needed. And the anti-stall features will be brought on step-by-step.”

Staring at a month of downtime, HPD will continue working hard on developing its engine with the new ECU, and improving the DW12 chassis using virtual tools at its southern California base before heading back to Sebring.

INDYCAR has locked in the Dallara DW12's road and street course specification, for the most part, while its oval spec awaits new suspension and a dedicated to-be-developed oval aero kit. (HPD)

“We’re done for the remainder of the year as of the 15th,” said Griffiths. “The testing blackout is lifted on the 12th of January. The next test for us and GM will be the 16th and 17th of January back at Sebring along with a number of teams with their cars.”

Although HPD’s staff knows exactly what it will be doing in the coming weeks, the same can’t be said for Sato. His evaluation left everyone at Honda and its partners at Rahal feeling encouraged, but the Japanese driver says he’s not ready to relax until he has a signed contract with RLL or another IndyCar team for 2012.

“To be honest, in this world, until everything is sorted, it’s difficult to say where I’ll be,” he said. “I’m honored to be called for the manufacturer test and it was a worthwhile trip. Making the trip from Japan to India [to Sebring] in one-and-a-half days was a big journey, but it was worth it. It was hectic, but everything we’re doing is to prepare for next year. Things are looking very positive and [I’m] very optimistic that I could have a big smile on my face very soon.”
Pagenaud has the luxury of knowing where he’ll be driving next year, but after two workman-like tests with HPD, he can’t wait to be unleashed on a track with SSM’s DW12-Honda.

“I can’t wait to get [SSM’s] car on the track and to start digging into the setup, to make it my own, really, and to start working on a better balance. I want to be able to do full attack. The Sebring test was mostly about engine testing and electronics, not attacking, so I will wait a little bit for that present to arrive!”

Marshall Pruett is SPEED.com's Auto Racing Editor, covering IndyCar and sports cars. He also contributes to Road & Track and Racecar Engineering. Follow him on Facebook and Twitter.