Still a long way to go on gas.

John George says he is pleased at the performance of the LPG powered Honda Civic Type-R after the Mardi Gras entry made its track debut at Donington Park last week.

The test was the first time the car had turned a wheel with the gas conversion fitted and, despite finishing over six seconds off the pace of the leading Vauxhall, George said the team had had a productive first run.

"It's been an opportunity," he told Crash.net. "We've had a productive day. The car has only been with us four days and it didn't break down at all. It's been pretty good really.

"We struggled at the start of the day because we had too much weight in the car but we've taken a lot of it out and it's going much better now. The car was set up for Thruxton which was obviously not going to work round Donington. It probably cost us two to three seconds a lap."

Having started the test running on a combination of petrol and gas, the team had the car running solely on gas by the end of the day, making it much more responsive on the throttle although work still needs to be done on the car ahead of the season opener at Thruxton.

"We still have a long way to go with the car and the first race is probably going to come a bit too early for us." George said. "We only have one days testing before then so we could struggle to be competitive. However Thruxton is a very quick circuit so if we can gear the car high enough we could do ok."