Button struggles for balance as Barrichello secures front row slot
Brawn GP’s Rubens Barrichello delivered an excellent performance in qualifying for the British Grand Prix at Silverstone today to put his Brawn-Mercedes car on the front of the grid for the race tomorrow. Team-mate Jenson Button brought his car home in sixth position and will start his home race from the third row of the grid after struggling with the balance of his car.
Both Brawn GP drivers progressed through a red-flagged Q1 following Adrian Sutil’s accident, and then through Q2 despite encountering difficulties with the balance of the car as they struggled to get their tyres up to temperature in the cool conditions.
Rubens drove a great lap on his final run in Q3 to split the two Red Bull cars and secure second on the grid. Jenson had a more difficult time with his first set of tyres in Q3 and despite some adjustments for his final run, the balance of his car was not quite right and he battled a combination of oversteer and understeer to secure sixth position.
Rubens Barrichello: “I’m really happy to be starting from the front row of the grid tomorrow on a track that I love and feels like home to me. After some hard work overnight we changed the car a little and my engineers did a great job to get the set-up to my liking ready for qualifying. I really got everything out of the car today and we were able to achieve a little more than we expected. It’s clear that the Red Bulls have made a good step forward so I’m delighted to have put the car on the front row and split Sebastian and Mark. We hoped for third today so it’s great to go one better. Now I hope that we can go one better tomorrow as well!”
Jenson Button: “Whilst qualifying in sixth is by no means a bad result of course I’m hugely disappointed not to be starting my home Grand Prix from further up the grid. We knew that we would find it difficult here as our car doesn’t work so well at low temperatures and I really struggled to get the tyres into their working range. I struggled massively with understeer in the high speed corners and then had oversteer at low speed so it wasn’t the best balance for such a competitive qualifying session. My aim as always in the race will be to score as many points as possible and I hope that we can put on a great show for the thousands of fans who will be here to enjoy the race at this fantastic circuit.”
Ross Brawn: “An excellent performance from Rubens today at a track which is one of his favourites and second place on the grid puts him in a very strong position for the race tomorrow. Jenson struggled a little more than Rubens with the tyres at the low temperatures that we experienced today and he was not happy with the balance of the car throughout qualifying. Unfortunately he was also affected by a misunderstood communication on the pitwall which resulted in us bringing him in a lap earlier than we perhaps should have and that cost him a place. If the temperatures warm up a little tomorrow, both cars should be in good shape for the race and we will do our best to ensure that we secure as many points as possible at our home Grand Prix.”
