European GP: Honda Saturday qualifying notes

The Honda Racing F1 Team experienced a disappointing qualifying session at the Nurburgring today where Rubens Barrichello and Jenson Button ended the day in 14th and 17th positions.

This morning's free practice session looked promising and a top ten grid slot was a possibility for at least one of the cars. In the end, Rubens missed out on Q3 by 0.3secs. He will line up on the seventh row of the grid for the start of tomorrow's 60-lap race with Jenson two rows behind.

Jenson Button:

"I'm massively disappointed. I thought we would qualify a lot higher but I didn't have the grip and balance that I've had on new tyres all weekend. We had reasonable pace on Friday with race fuel but with this many cars in front it is always going to be a struggle to get near the points."

Rubens Barrichello:

"Today's qualifying was tough. We needed around three or four tenths more to make the difference and it wasn't possible to get any more out of the car today. I was generally pretty happy with my runs but my quick lap at the end of Q2 wasn't so good because it was difficult to a good out-lap due to traffic."

Jacky Eeckelaert, Engineering Director:

"I'm disappointed with our grid positions today. We know that the race pace of our car is strong enough to fight for a top ten position in the race, however we still struggle to lay the foundations for that in terms of our qualifying performance. Rubens' car was quite well-balanced after some set-up changes we made yesterday. Jenson didn't have good grip or balance in qualifying which is surprising as he had been happy with the car on new tyres in free practice."

Rubens Barrichello
Chassis: RA107-05
14th, 1:32.221

Jenson Button
Chassis: RA107-04
17th, 1:32.983

-credit: honda