Formula One news

Honda looking for more performance

Honda completed the first two free practice sessions at Hockenheim today in preparation for this weekend's German Grand Prix. The track was wet for the majority of the morning session, before drying out by the start of the afternoon, when Jenson Button and Rubens Barrichello finished the day in 13th and 14th positions respectively.

"We found a reasonable balance on the car during the morning session, however unfortunately we struggled to continue the progress this afternoon," said Barrichello. "The car had a real lack of grip in the slightly warmer afternoon temperatures, with the rear in particular feeling unstable. It was a tough session as we tried to work out the problem and we have a lot of work to do overnight to get the car back to a driveable set-up." 

Jenson Button commented, "A busy but productive practice for us today. We made some improvements to the balance and set-up of the car in both sessions, in addition to conducting an evaluation of the prime and option tyres. However I am not completely happy with the balance, so we have some work ahead of us before qualifying."

Engineering chief Steve Clark added, "The track has lost a lot of grip since the test last week due to the rain over the last few days. This has highlighted a number of issues which were not apparent during the test with braking stability and poor traction being our biggest challenges today. There is no doubt that we are not alone in experiencing this situation, however we do seem to suffer more than our competitors in low grip situations. On the positive side, as the track improves over the weekend, we expect that to be reflected in our performance."

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