First pole for Honda in 37 years.
Jenson Button will start tomorrow’s Australian Grand Prix from pole position, following a sensational performance in this afternoon’s qualifying session at Albert Park. At the end of three incident-filled sessions, he clinched the top spot by more than 0.4s.
Rubens Barrichello, by comparison, had a torrid time. He qualified 17th for tomorrow’s 58-lap race after being knocked out of proceedings at the end of Q1.
The first session was interrupted by a red flag, and the resultant on-track congestion in the dying minutes made it difficult for Rubens to improve his lap time of 1:29.943s. Only adding to his frustration was the fact that he set the fastest time through sector one.
Jenson, however, cruised through the opening two qualifying sessions and not even a rain shower at the end of session two could halt his progress. The track was slippery at the start of session three, but it soon dried and Jenson was able to set his pole time of 1:25.229s.
This pole position is the third of Jenson’s Formula 1 career and the first for the factory Honda team since 1968.
Jenson Button “It’s a fantastic feeling to be on pole here after such a manic qualifying session for everybody. With two red flags and the rain shower half way through, it was very difficult to stay calm and get our thoughts together. That’s exactly what we did though and I’m so thrilled for the team. This is a very special moment for everyone in Honda as it’s the first pole since they returned to works team status. I know all eyes will be on us for tomorrow but we didn’t get much running done in race trim today. We know we’re quick over a lap but we will only know how competitive we really are when we leave the grid tomorrow. All we can do now is give it our very best shot, aim for a faultless race and make the most of every situation.”
Rubens Barrichello “I’m obviously very disappointed with how qualifying went for me today because everything was running much more smoothly for us and the team have done a good job all weekend. At the end of the day, I just lost out to traffic after the restart in the first session. We have a tough mountain to climb tomorrow but we’ll see what we can do to challenge for points nonetheless.”
