Formula One news

Honda lacking top speed for Canada

Honda may have scored a strong sixth place finish in Monaco and taken another three championship points at the slow-speed street circuit, but team principal Ross Brawn is wary about his team's chances in Canada this week, where he beleives they will be lacking ultimate top speed.

"We were pleased with the pace and performance of the RA108 around Monaco last week and it was encouraging to score further points, particularly with Rubens for the first time this season," said Brawn. "However Canada is a completely different challenge and the downforce levels required are medium to low, the opposite of Monaco. The Circuit Gilles Villeneuve is a big technical challenge, and with a combination of high-speed blasts, slow chicanes and hairpins, it can be very tough on the cars."

"Although I am pleased with the progress that the team has made over the last few races, we have been lacking the speed necessary to really maximise long straights, so it will be up to us to get the most from the performance that we have available in the car," he added. "I am expecting a more challenging weekend than in Monaco."

"We ran the RA108 in low downforce specification on a Montreal configured layout of the Paul Ricard circuit on the final day of the test before Monaco," Brawn went on. "Unfortunately the weather conditions were very poor which resulted in most of the day being washed out. However Jenson was able to achieve a few laps to obtain some basic aerodynamic data, which we have used along with data from previous years, to prepare our specific aerodynamic package for this race."

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