Formula One news

Honda happy with solid qualifying

Honda enjoyed a solid qualifying session in Malaysia today, once again coming close to achieving a position in the top 10. Jenson Button will start tomorrow's Malaysian Grand Prix from 11th place and Rubens Barrichello from 14th. 

"I'm happy with P11 and to be starting on the right side of the grid for the race," said Button. "The weather was looking changeable with the risk of rain, so we ran early in both sessions to get a banker time in. My final run in the second session was on the option tyres and I'm really happy with the lap as we just missed out on going through by less than 0.1sec."

Barrichello commented, "It was unfortunate that we had a problem this morning with the gear selection which limited my running and therefore when you go into qualifying, you are playing catch-up all the time. However it was a good effort this afternoon and I'm happy with how our session developed to eventually finish in 14th position. It would have been nice to have more time this morning to set the car up a little better but we made the best of a difficult situation."

Honda engineering chief Steve Clark added, "The forecast is for the possibility of rain and for us a wet race would certainly suit our starting grid slots of P11 and P14. It is also our best chance of scoring points. If the conditions remain dry it will probably be a very tight race in the midfield and we would expect most people to two stop and probably at the same point in the race."

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