Formula One news

Honda F1 reasonably happy with performance in qualifying

The Honda Racing F1 Team qualified its RA108s in 14th and 18th positions for the Chinese Grand Prix in Shanghai this afternoon. Rubens Barrichello was the quicker of the team's two drivers, progressing into Q2 for the first time since the Canadian Grand Prix in June. Jenson Button, meanwhile, just missed the cut for Q2 and will start tomorrow's race from the penultimate row of the grid.

Commenting on his best qualifying position for a while Barrichello said: "It was a really nice lap to progress into Q2 today as I had a slow out-lap because everyone was backed up and I was worried about the lack of grip, so it was a really good effort. I then had probably my best lap around this circuit to make a 1.36.079 by getting everything possible out of the car. I don't think we would have been able to produce anything more than that. I'm pleased with our performance today, particularly after the difficulties that we had in practice yesterday, so we can be very satisfied with our grid position for the race tomorrow."

Jenson Button said: "I was reasonably happy with the balance after practice this morning, but unfortunately the car went away from us in qualifying. We just weren't able to find a good balance this afternoon with a real lack of front grip on the prime tyres and difficulty with traction out of the corners. We need to look into why this happened and why we were unable to get the best out of the car. It will be a tough race from here tomorrow."

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