Formula One news

Honda misses chance of big points

Honda's Jenson Button and Rubens Barrichello battled through atrocious weather conditions at Fuji Speedway today to bring their RA107s home in 10th and 11th positions.

"I'm obviously disappointed that our strategy did not work out today but to be honest, in my view, the race should have been stopped very early on," Barrichello said. "The conditions were so difficult and it was impossible to see anything for the entire race. We tried to work the conditions to our advantage but the decisions did not work out today. We will put this race behind us now and focus on next weekend in China."

Button commented, "It's hugely frustrating that we weren't able to take advantage of our strong qualifying performance in the race today. The conditions and visibility were so bad that it felt really dangerous out there and it was really difficult to keep the tyres warm enough to be effective. I had already lost my front wing after a coming-together with Heidfeld, then I had an engine sensor problem which put me back in last place. I had to come in to get a new nose and after that it was just a case of trying to stay on the road and pick up positions where possible. All in all it's a real shame as we could have scored some points today but we take some comfort from a good performance yesterday which put a smile on the team's faces."

Engineering director Jacky Eeckelaert added, "It is disappointing to end our home race in 10th and 11th positions, especially with Jenson having started from the third row of the grid. His ability to challenge for points was unfortunately lost at turn one when he lost his front wing after a coming together with Heidfeld. The visibility was so poor that you cannot blame either driver for that. Rubens drove a steady race from 17th to 10th, but unfortunately the deployment of the safety cars did not match his fuel strategy. We feel we missed out on an opportunity to score some good points today and that is frustrating."

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