Sixth and Seventh rows at Magny-Cours for Honda

Jenson Button and Rubens Barrichello will start tomorrow’s French Grand Prix from 12th and 13th positions respectively. Although neither of the Honda Racing F1 Team drivers made it into Q3, they made significant progress with the set-up of their RA107s during Q1 and Q2 and, in the end, Jenson missed out on the top 10 by just 0.2s.

The weather conditions were hotter today than yesterday and the resultant 15-degree increase in track temperature required the engineers to modify the set-up of the cars. They started this process during this morning’s one-hour practice session and continued it into qualifying itself.

In Q1 the drivers completed two runs each and set times within 0.1s of each other. Jenson’s best time of 1:16.113s placed him 14th, while Rubens’ time of 1:16.140s placed him two places further back, behind Jarno Trulli.

The drivers continued to work on their cars between Q1 and Q2 and they immediately improved their lap times in the second session. Jenson’s second and final run in Q2 was 0.6s faster than his best lap in Q1, his time of 1:15.584s placing him 12th. Rubens also took a big step forward in Q2, but his best lap of 1:15.761s fell 0.2s shy of Jenson and placed him in 13th place.

Despite today’s sunshine, the weather forecast for tomorrow’s 70-lap race is not good. Forecasters in the Magny Cours region say there is a 90 percent chance of rain, which would require all the teams on the grid to re-think their strategies. Luckily for the Honda Racing F1 Team, Jenson and Rubens both excel in wet conditions.

Jenson Button “It's always so tight here at Magny Cours during qualifying and we saw that again today. We have made a step forward and the car is certainly better than at the last race in Indianapolis, although our position doesn’t really reflect that. It’s nice to be in front of some of our direct competitors in the midfield though. Looking ahead to tomorrow, our race pace is definitely better than our one-lap pace, you could see that in practice yesterday. We will keep working towards the race and I think we have a good strategy, so I am hopeful that we can have a better result tomorrow."

Rubens Barrichello "The car was definitely better in qualifying this afternoon after I made some changes during morning practice when we weren't really happy with the set-up. We took a little bit of a gamble but it resulted in a more balanced set-up and I think we worked hard to get the most from the car today. We know that our long-run pace is strong so I am looking forward to the race tomorrow."

Jacky Eeckelaert, Engineering Director “Today’s qualifying was very close, as is typical here in Magny-Cours and we missed out on a place in the top ten by only two tenths of a second. The latest developments brought the car closer to our direct competitors, so we are pleased to see that our progress at the test last week has translated well to the race track. Our race pace on high fuel loads is now more consistent which is promising for the race tomorrow.”