10/07/2004
NEWS STORY
Local hero Jenson Button delivered a second row grid slot for his Lucky Strike BAR Honda team in today's final qualifying for the British Grand Prix. Spurred on by his home crowd and thousands of Union Jacks in the grandstands, Jenson drove a solid lap to post the third fastest time behind Kimi Raikkonen's McLaren and the Ferrari of Rubens Barrichello. His team-mate Takuma Sato will start from the fourth row in eighth position.
Jenson Button: "It's good to qualify third for our home race. Obviously we would have liked to have been on pole here but third is a good position to start the race from. As is often the case, it's difficult to know what strategies everyone else is running, so I'm quite pleased to be where we are. The car has been handling much better than yesterday. We're not 100% happy with it after all the positive testing we have done here, but I think strategy-wise we're in good shape for the race. Today has been a tough one to call weather-wise and I think it will be the case again tomorrow. My target now is a podium and playing my part in a solid team result in front of our home crowd."
Takuma Sato: "I feel that we have a good strategy for tomorrow so I'm reasonably happy with my lap time. Everybody was gambling with the weather in pre-qualifying and we were hoping that it would pay off in the final run. Silverstone is a circuit where I have many memories from my Junior Formula days, so I would really like to have a strong race tomorrow. However, the changeable weather will make for an interesting race and of course we hope that we can make the best of our strategy in front of the team's home crowd."
David Richards, Team Principal: "The first session was rather confusing due to some unusual tactics created by the uncertainty around the weather conditions expected for the second session. However, we were confident with the information we received from our helicopter, which was flying upwind, allowing Jenson to run at full pace in the first session and ensuring an optimum strategy for the race. Both drivers are in a position to score good points tomorrow and with changeable weather forecast for the race, we must ensure we make the most of every opportunity."
Geoffrey Willis, Technical Director: "This was an unusual qualifying with many teams responding to the threat of rain during the second qualifying session by running deliberately slow laps in the first session. However as our information promised, the rain held off and Jenson was able to run last in second qualifying as planned. A small mistake in the complex lost Jenson a small amount of time but it was still good enough for third. With Takuma in eighth place we have both cars in good positions for tomorrow's race, for which there is a high chance of rain. In response to yesterday's difficulties, we made set-up and aerodynamic changes overnight, and despite deliberately limiting our running, found some good improvements. We now look forward to tomorrow's race."
Shuhei Nakamoto, Engineering Director, Honda Racing Development: "It was an interesting day, clearly all the teams had slightly different ideas about what was going to happen with the weather. I think we should go well tomorrow - we certainly want to put on a good show at one of our home GPs."