Chinese GP: BAR Friday practice notes

The B*A*R Honda team embarked on the first day's running of the final race of the season today, eager to end 2005 on a high. Race drivers Jenson Button and Takuma Sato completed 81 laps of tyre comparisons and set-up work, to fine tune the B*A*R Honda 007 to the characteristics of the spectacular Shanghai International Circuit.

In the morning's first free practice session, Jenson and Takuma were the 10th and 12th fastest drivers overall - 8th and 10th fastest excluding the Friday-only runners. This afternoon, the drivers focused more on long-run evaluation and tyre work to end the day 9th and 13th.

Jenson Button:

"We've completed all our planned running for today and achieved a lot of laps, so we've made a good start in that respect. We suffered from low grip this morning but the grip level improved in the afternoon. Overall the car feels better to drive than in the last two races. We have a lot of data from both cars to look at so, as usual, it's a busy night ahead with the engineers to make sure we keep moving in the right direction."

Takuma Sato:

"It was a good start to the practice session and this has given us a good initial direction. The balance at the beginning of the day was good and we acquired all the important information that we need to make our tyre decision for tomorrow. I'm looking forward to continuing this good progress throughout the rest of the weekend."

Gil de Ferran, Sporting director:

"It was a fairly typical Friday today, although we probably worked more on the car set-up than usual and made good progress throughout both practice sessions. We accumulated a lot of data on both cars since all the running was trouble-free. This gives us a good basis for making our tyre decision and hopefully improving the car a little more for tomorrow."

Shuhei Nakamoto, Engineering director, Honda Racing Development:

"Not much to report today. Both cars did well over twenty laps once the track had cleaned up. We had no problems. I am looking forward to hearing the V10's at 19,000 rev plus in qualy tomorrow for the last time. The engines sound great as the noise bounces back off the huge grandstands."

Jenson Button
Chassis: BAR Honda 007-04
Free Practice 1: 10th
Fastest lap time: 1:36.096
Free Practice 2: 9th
Fastest lap time: 1:35.072

Takuma Sato
Chassis: BAR Honda 007-05
Free Practice 1: 12th
Fastest lap time: 1:36.829
Free Practice 2: 13th
Fastest lap time: 1:35.397

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