Formula One news

Honda continues to struggle at Fuji

Qualifying at the Fuji Speedway ended in disappointment for the Honda Racing F1 Team today and Rubens Barrichello and Jenson Button will now share the ninth row of the grid for the start of tomorrow's Japanese Grand Prix.

"Although my second run today was actually a good qualifying lap, unfortunately we are at the back of the midfield group where just another three-tenths would have been enough to put me in P10," said a disappointed Rubens Barrichello. "I was already right on the limit with my second run so we had to take a bit of a gamble with the final run and add a little more front wing. Unfortunately this led to the tyres graining by the second sector and I was not able to improve. It's a shame that we were unable to qualify better than this at our home race but we will do our best to make the most of any opportunities in the race tomorrow."

For Jenson Button it wasn't any better. He commented: "It has not been the best of days for us today but hopefully the race tomorrow will be better. I have been struggling with the car for the whole weekend and have found it difficult to achieve a good balance. The car was better in the wet this morning, however the bumps and corner apexes are unsettling the car in the dry and we have not been able to resolve this. I had too much understeer on my final run in qualifying today which made the car very twitchy and difficult to get round the corners and I was unable to improve my lap time. It's disappointing but we just have to do our best with the package that we have."

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