The Honda Racing F1 Team today commenced its preparations for Sunday's Monaco Grand Prix, Formula One's 'jewel in the crown' which is held on the famous tight and twisting Monte Carlo street circuit.

Rubens Barrichello and Jenson Button geared up for the weekend by achieving plenty of laps in today's two free practice sessions, to fine-tune the RA107 to suit the unique set of challenges presented by this circuit. They ended the day in 11th and 12th positions respectively.

Rubens Barrichello: "As is always the case here, the track was very dirty today. The teams are all trying different things so it's hard to get a true idea of where we are in the field. I think we can see from our running though that we have made some progress, so I am pleased with the day. We did a lot of running and have a huge amount of information to work with, which combined with our test data gives us plenty of work to do during tomorrow's 'day off'. I am hopeful for a more positive weekend and looking forward to it. It's always great to race in Monaco."

Jenson Button: "Not a bad day overall. We achieved everything we set out to achieve and it has been quite productive. Monaco is always very exciting and fun to drive. As we saw today, there can be a lot of incidents which can make it difficult to get clean runs, so the trick is obviously to stay out of trouble. I'm really looking forward to the rest of the weekend."

Jacky Eeckelaert, Engineering Director: "We have made good progress today in preparation for the weekend ahead. Tailoring the cars to suit the unique demands of this circuit is always a challenge and the track was particularly 'green' this morning. However we have worked steadily through our programme and ended up with a good baseline from which we can continue to develop through the weekend. Following our four-day test in Paul Ricard and a lot of running here today, we have plenty of data to work with so the national holiday tomorrow is much-welcomed. We will have a whole extra day for the engineering team and drivers to work together in preparation for qualifying on Saturday. Generally a good start with some positive signs but with more hard work ahead of us."

To check out our Monaco practice gallery, click here