Honda optimistic despite mechanical problem for Barrichello
The Honda Racing F1 Team got its Canadian Grand Prix weekend off to an encouraging start today, when Rubens Barrichello set the seventh fastest time during this afternoon’s free practice session. His team-mate Jenson Button was 13th.
The team carried out a lot of set-up work today because the Circuit Gilles Villeneuve is the first low-downforce track of the year. The braking areas are also very long and several corners have been re-surfaced since last year.
The opening 1.5-hour practice session was characterised by a general lack of grip for all the teams. The situation improved as rubber was laid on the racing line, but, unfortunately for Rubens, he missed the final 20 minutes with a mechanical problem. He completed a total of just 18 laps. Jenson had a trouble-free run and his total of 26 laps gave the team important set-up data for the remainder of the weekend.
Both drivers took to the track early in session two and they completed significantly more mileage than in the morning. Rubens (38 laps) worked through various set-ups and tyre comparisons and set his fastest time – 1:18.108s – in the dying moments, when track conditions were at their best.
Jenson (36 laps) wasn’t on-track at the end of session two, but he too made a lot of progress with set-up and his fastest lap of 1:18.474s was good enough for 13th place.
Rubens Barrichello "The team did a great job working to improve the car over the day so I am happy with that. The balance of the car is not yet where I want it to be, however looking at the degradation of the tyres and seeing how we performed this afternoon, we can be positive and work towards a better day tomorrow.”
Jenson Button "We completed all of the work that we planned for today, with both Rubens and I covering a lot of laps which gives us valuable data to with overnight. It has been a reasonable start to the weekend and although we have some work to do to improve our long-run pace, overall it was a good day."
Jacky Eeckeleart, Engineering Director “We achieved our planned programme today and completed plenty of running but we have had some problems finding a good long run balance on the option tyre. We suspect this has been the case for some of the other teams also. We have seen quite a significant track evolution between the two sessions, and if the conditions develop as we expect them to, then the track should be more suited to the softer tyre. Our long run pace on the hard tyres was pretty competitive compared to those teams closest to us.”
