FREE PRACTICE
Formula One's European season got underway in Barcelona today with the first free practice sessions for Sunday's Spanish Grand Prix. The Honda Racing F1 Team's Jenson Button and Rubens Barrichello made progress during the day to finish in 13th and 14th places respectively.
JENSON BUTTON"We spent four days testing here last week so we had a good idea going into this weekend of how the car would perform. Today we did the usual Friday work, setting-up the car for qualifying and race conditions. We have made some small steps with the stability of the car since the last race but the outright pace has not yet improved a lot. However, both Rubens and I covered a lot of laps today so we will look at all the data this evening and see what progress can be made."
RUBENS BARRICHELLO"A very conventional Friday. We test so often at this circuit, most recently last week, that we know how the car performs and pretty much where we stand versus the competition. I think the car has improved since Bahrain and we have a decent race pace but not such a good pace for qualifying, so we need to look at that this evening and try to improve during tomorrow's final free practice session."
JACKY EECKELAERTEngineering Director"A fairly smooth day in terms of achieving our planned programme and with no specific problems. The car behaved pretty much the same as in the test last week but the track conditions have changed slightly, so it was good to do the comparison work with both tyre options to ensure we have all the right data available for the strategy. I think overall we have made a small step in the right direction in terms of car performance but obviously there is still a long way to go."
FREE PRACTICE STATS
Drivers Car No. Chassis No. Free Practice 1 Free Practice 2 Jenson Button 7 RA107-04 22 laps 01:23.114 P10 39 laps 01:22.808 P13 Rubens Barrichello 8 RA107-02 23 laps 01:23.479 P18 40 laps 01:22.926 P14
Weather Hot and sunny Temperatures Air: 23-25°C Track: 31-38°C
