US GP: BAR Friday practice notes

Lucky Strike B*A*R Honda's United States Grand Prix weekend got underway today at the legendary Indianapolis Motor Speedway. This morning, Jenson Button and Takuma Sato ended the first of the free practice sessions in 5th and 7th places respectively.

This afternoon, Jenson had a problematic start to the second session when a gearbox problem was identified after running got underway. The team switched to the T-car gearbox just as the session was red flagged following Ralf Schumacher's accident, which meant that Jenson lost the minimum amount of running time. He ended the day 15th with team-mate Takuma in 16th.

Jenson Button:

"The good thing is that we did all our comparisons for the tyres and all our normal tests that we do on a Friday but the pace isn't very good and we're struggling with grip a little bit. We've got a busy night ahead of us. We know where some of the problems are coming from and expect to solve those by tomorrow and get back on the pace a bit more."

Takuma Sato:

"It's great to be back at Indianapolis where we had such a good result last year. Free practice has been pretty smooth for us. We didn't have any problems and we were able to complete the tyre programme and set-up work that we had planned. We still need to do a lot of work to become more competitive but I hope we can make good progress from here."

Gil de Ferran:

"As is usual on Fridays we concentrated on tyre choice today and race set-up. It is very difficult to know where we are versus the competition during these free practice sessions since different teams run varied strategies. However our car was not handling very well this afternoon and hopefully we will improve the balance for tomorrow."

Shuhei Nakamoto, Engineering director, Honda Racing Development:

"Both drivers managed to do a lot of laps despite one or two little problems. After the good work the boys did in changing Taku's gearbox in Canada our qualifying start positions are not too bad so I am optimistic for tomorrow."

Jenson Button
Chassis: BAR Honda 007-05
Practice session 1: 5th, 1:12.865
Practice session 2: 15th, 1:12.803

Takuma Sato
Chassis: BAR Honda 007-02
Practice session 1: 7th, 1:13.013
Practice session 2: 16th, 1:13.037

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