Double points finish for Honda pair
Jenson Button and Rubens Barrichello delivered a double points finish for the Honda Racing F1 Team for the third successive race today, boosting the team’s points tally by another seven championship points after finishing 5th and 6th respectively.
The pair adopted differing strategies for the 53-lap Italian Grand Prix, in which Rubens made a single pitstop with Jenson stopping twice. The team delivered three faultless pitstops to make the most of every opportunity to end the European season on a positive note before heading into the final three long-haul races.
Jenson Button“This is a good team result although we were looking for more from today. The balance wasn’t anywhere near as good as we’d hoped for. We made some adjustments at the first stop but we were still not as quick as we needed to be. I think we can feel reasonably pleased with this result at the end of a challenging weekend.”
Rubens Barrichello“I suffered a little bit at the start because I was quite heavy with fuel. Unfortunately since the start of the weekend we didn’t have good straight line speed which is why Fisichella was able to pass me quite easily. From there on I was struggling with rear grip and I was really just ‘surviving’. When you consider where we started from after the problems on Friday I think this is a good result for the team, getting two cars into the points once again.”
Gil de Ferran, Sporting Director“I think we can feel reasonably happy with our result today. Another double points finish for our team in a weekend that started with some difficulties. We decided on different strategies for Jenson and Rubens, but in the end they were as closely matched this afternoon as they were yesterday. The balance of our cars was not quite as good as it was during practice and qualifying therefore we lacked a little pace to put up a stronger challenge for higher positions. Otherwise we have no problems to report; the engines ran well and the pitstops were smooth and fast. We leave Europe reasonably satisfied with the progress we have made but still pushing for further improvement in the last three races.”
