4th place for Jenson
Jenson Button finished this yesterday’s German Grand Prix in an encouraging fourth place. The Honda Racing F1 Team driver started the race in fourth place and ran as high as third before being forced to settle for fourth place in the closing stages.
Rubens Barrichello, Jenson’s team-mate, also drove well. He ran as high as fifth in the early stages until a suspected engine problem forced him to retire on lap 19.
The start of the race was very busy for both drivers. Jenson was passed into Turn 1 by Giancarlo Fisichella and Fernando Alonso, but he managed to re-pass Alonso by the end of the opening lap. On lap two, Jenson overtook Fisichella for fourth and set about stabilising the gap to third-placed Felipe Massa.
Rubens, meanwhile, dropped to ninth at the start and had to sit on the gearbox of Mark Webber for the opening laps. He moved up to eighth when Pedro de la Rosa retired and then seventh when Kimi Raikkonen was the first car to pit, on lap 10.
Jenson inherited third place when Raikkonen was in the pits, before making his own pitstop on lap 16. Rubens overtook Webber on the same lap, so he jumped two places to be fifth. He then made his first stop on lap 18, but he was forced to retire on his out-lap after a suspected engine failure.
Jenson drove a tenacious middle stint, overtaking Raikkonen for seventh on lap 18 and pressuring Webber for the next 19 laps. Webber then made his first stop on lap 38, which moved Jenson into third place.
He made his second and final stop on lap 41 and drove the bulk of the final stint in third place. However, Raikkonen applied a lot of pressure and despite fighting hard to retain his position, Jenson was passed on lap 58. At the chequered flag, Jenson was 5.6s behind Raikkonen.
The Honda Racing F1 Team has a busy week ahead, moving to Hungary for next weekend’s Hungarian Grand Prix in Budapest.
Jenson Button “I had a great race today and the first two stints were very enjoyable. To get past both Renaults at the start and then past Kimi during the race felt very good and I had a lot of fun out there. The last stint was really tough because I had massive amounts of tyre graining on the front left and a lot of rear locking, so I just couldn’t fight off Raikkonen. I’m really happy though. We’ve made a definite step forward here and we’ve been strong all weekend but we have to continue that into Hungary now which will be hard work. It looks like we’re getting back on track though.”
Rubens Barrichello “We made some good progress here this weekend, so it’s very disappointing for me that we let that go with a bad start and an engine failure. In the first few laps the car was running well and with the strategy and long run pace we had I think we should have done well today. Not long after my first pit stop the engine caught fire and there was oil on the tyres which caused me to spin and that was the end of my race. I just have to hope that we can carry this progress through to Hungary now because everyone has been working so hard to take this step forward.”
Gil de Ferran, Sporting Director “Jenson achieved a good result for us today. After our strong qualifying performance yesterday, neither car had the best of starts, nevertheless both Jenson and Rubens were able to fight back during the first stint when the cars were handling well. Jenson was fighting hard for a podium, however the car's handling went away in the last stint and there was no way for him to maintain 3rd place. It was disappointing that Rubens had to retire after such a strong weekend. Overall we are happy with 4th place and we come away from Hockenheim encouraged by the improved performance of both cars, the credit for which must go to the whole team who have worked relentlessly on a variety of new developments to both car and engine."
