Jenson Button was pleased with his 10th place finish at Sepang - suggesting that the lack of attrition made it a true reflection of Honda's progress.
The British driver spent most of the race battling with Red Bull's David Coulthard and Renault's Nelson Piquet, and managed to fend off the latter despite a penultimate lap mistake that took him over the grass.
"I'm pretty satisfied with 10th place as that is where the performance of the car is right now," Button said.
"With the majority of cars ahead of us also finishing, it is a good reflection of our overall position."
"We're going in the right direction and learning more about the car all the time, so we need to keep up the hard work and continue to develop ahead of the next race in two weeks' time."
Team boss Ross Brawn was similarly encouraged by Honda's pace in a more representative grand prix, even though the team didn't run as strongly as it had in Melbourne, where Rubens Barrichello was a top six contender.
"This weekend was more straightforward for the whole field compared with Melbourne and we saw fewer drivers making mistakes," Brawn said.
"Sepang is also a more representative circuit in terms of car performance, as Melbourne can produce unusual results.
"Therefore to see Jenson finish the race in 10th place with Rubens just behind, in spite of his problems in the third free practice session, is very encouraging and a real indication of the car's pace.
"There is still a great deal of work to do but we are really starting to make improvements one step at a time."
Barrichello was delayed by a penalty for pit lane speeding, and felt the loss of practice mileage to a gearbox fault had ultimately disrupted his whole weekend.
"Unfortunately my weekend was compromised when we lost the free practice running on Saturday morning, as I lacked balance in the car for the race today," he said.
"I had a lot of understeer and was battling with that throughout the race.
"The drive-through penalty after my second stop was unfortunate, even though I only lost one place, as the markings in the pitlane to indicate where the speed limit ends were not clear enough."