Final day for di Grassi as Button joins the action

The Honda Racing F1 Team continued the test programme in Barcelona today with Jenson Button and Lucas Di Grassi at the wheel of the Honda RA108 cars. Jenson joined the team at the Circuit de Catalunya this morning to take over from Alex Wurz for the final two days of the test.

After adjusting the set-up of the car to his liking, Jenson concentrated on a tyre programme using the Bridgestone Potenza slick tyres to evaluate various set-up and balance changes.

The team’s evaluation of Lucas Di Grassi continued today with the young Brazilian driver having his opportunity for a full day in the RA108. After an installation run, Lucas completed a back-to-back balance evaluation on used slick tyres from Jenson’s programme before the team fitted new tyres for his final run of the morning. In the afternoon session, Lucas was able to use two further sets of new tyres as he worked though a chassis set-up programme.

This brings Lucas’s test activity in Barcelona to a close and Bruno Senna will take over the car tomorrow for his full-day programme.

Lucas di Grassi: “I completed 110 laps today so I have had a really productive day and I am very pleased. I ran for the first time properly with new tyres and the difference was massive compared to the used tyres from yesterday. With each new tyre run I was getting faster and faster. The slick tyre has much more grip and compared with the grooved tyre is easier to drive and more consistent over a run. I was very pleased with the performance of the car, the way the day developed and ultimately my lap time. I ended the day 0.5s from Jenson’s time and getting as close to him as possible was my target. I don’t think the day could have gone much better. I felt like I gave everything I could to the day. Finally I would just like to thank Honda for giving me this experience and I hope they are happy with my performance today.”