Promising early pace for Honda

The Honda Racing F1 Team began its preparations for the 2006 Chinese Grand Prix today. All three of the team’s drivers – third driver Anthony Davidson, plus race drivers Jenson Button and Rubens Barrichello – took to the 5.451-kilometre Shanghai International Circuit and the early indications for Sunday’s 56-lap race were positive.

The RA106 was immediately on the pace in the first one-hour session, with Davidson and Button second and third fastest. Barrichello, who won the inaugural Chinese GP in 2004, worked on a different tyre comparison programme during the session and was back in 12th place.

All three drivers completed more mileage in session two, during which rain was a constant threat. With 20 minutes of the session remaining, drizzle began to fall, which was enough to slow lap times compared to session one, but not enough to force the drivers off their grooved Michelin tyres.

Davidson ended the day third fastest, with a time of 1:35.714s; Button was in 11th place on 1:37.861s and Barrichello was 16th on 1:38.276s.

The team will now collate the data from today’s running and use it to make its tyre choice for the remainder of the weekend.

"It's been quite a good day generally. The rain in the second session made it a bit difficult to work with the tyres but it was the same for everyone out there. We're competitive, the car felt nice to drive and we are looking good on the long runs as well so it's a case of so far, so good. We'll have to wait to see what the weather brings over the weekend but I think we're in reasonably good shape."

"We've achieved a lot of work considering the weather conditions and I think we're looking reasonably competitive so far. This afternoon, the conditions were pretty poor which made it difficult to conduct any meaningful tyre comparison work."

"I had a very strange day today because my car had a balance this morning and then it was changing this afternoon. So the car feels very different from run to run and we need to find out what is causing the problem. Apart from that I'm very confident that the tyres should do a good job. It's a great circuit and I think we can continue to improve here throughout the weekend so I'm reasonably happy at this stage."

"Despite the slight drizzle during the second session, we were able to complete the planned programme today with all three cars. We didn't have any major issues; however there is room for improvement with the balance of both race cars, which is somewhat inconsistent at the moment. Tonight we will sit down with the Michelin engineers to look over the tyre data and help us make a difficult choice, as it appears that they brought two very good tyres to China. A good start to the weekend and we look competitive at this point."