Formula One news

Honda looking for more straight-line speed

Free practice for this weekend's Italian Grand Prix got underway in warm and sunny conditions in Monza this morning. In low downforce trim to suit the characteristics of this circuit, both of the Honda Racing F1 Team's RA107s ran through a straightforward Friday programme and made an encouraging start to the weekend. 

"A pretty straightforward Friday in terms of our programme," said Button. "This morning the balance seemed quite encouraging and we got off to a reasonable start. This afternoon we concentrated on doing long runs to evaluate the tyres as well as some more specific set-up work. The balance wasn't as good as this morning, especially on the new tyres, so we need to have a look at the data now and work out why."

Barrichello commented, "This morning we had a big deficit in terms of straight line speed, so this afternoon we tried a number of changes and have found some improvements. The set-up and balance also felt better this afternoon so we are making progress, but there is still a lot of work to achieve tonight and tomorrow morning."

Engineering director Jacky Eeckelaert added, "After last week's test here in Monza we our set-up work was more straightforward than usual as the track conditions were similar. We concentrated on fine-tuning the car balance for the race conditions with both Prime and Option tyres. Both cars ran our modified front and rear suspension and we will maintain this configuration for the race on Sunday."

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