10/09/2004
NEWS STORY
All three Lucky Strike BAR Honda drivers were in the top eight of the field at the end of today's free practice sessions for the Italian Grand Prix.
Anthony Davidson set the team's initial pace this morning, ending the first session in 3rd place behind the two Ferraris. He conducted most of the running to achieve 25 laps, whilst race drivers Jenson Button and Takuma Sato completed only five and eight laps as they waited for the track to pick up grip. They ended the morning 6th and 11th respectively.
This afternoon, Jenson, Takuma and Anthony ended the session 4th, 6th and 8th with Anthony completing an excellent 37 laps, taking his day's tally to 62 laps - well over the 53-lap race distance at Monza.
Jenson Button: "4th place isn't too bad at the end of Friday. My lap on new tyres was pretty average so I feel this is a good start considering that we have tomorrow to focus on set-up. The times of the top six cars are very close so it's still quite early in the weekend to make any predictions. I think we have a good car here though and I'm sure we have a strong weekend ahead of us."
Takuma Sato: "This was a good start to the weekend. We came from testing with a lot of positive information and put in a competitive performance today. It is warm here once again, but we have all three cars performing well so the team are very happy. If we continue to work well on set-up tomorrow then I feel that we should have a strong qualifying session."
Anthony Davidson: "I had a good first session this morning finishing 3rd behind the Ferraris and then achieved the fourth fastest time of the day overall. I'm really happy with my performance today and we gathered lots of useful data for the rest of the weekend, which will make our tyre choice much easier. The times are very close at top, so it looks like the weekend could be quite hard-fought, with BAR in the thick of it."
David Richards, Team Principal: "Given that all of the teams were here a week ago it is no surprise to see the top nine cars covered by less than a second, and it satisfying to see all three of our drivers in the top eight today. With over 100 laps completed between the three of them we have a very good basis on which to make our decisions for the rest of the weekend, and I feel confident that we are in good shape for tomorrow."
Geoffrey Willis, Technical Director: "Friday running is normally straightforward at Monza since we follow straight on from our three-day test here. We have been competitive throughout the sessions and have had no problems with the chassis or engine. As usual the track conditions have not been quite as good as at the test, but we expect this to improve throughout the weekend. The only incident we encountered today was when Anthony, like a number of other drivers, was caught out by the slipperiness of the kerbs which have been repainted since last week's test."
Shuhei Nakamoto, Engineering Director, Honda Racing Development: "A good day today for all three of our drivers. We're running a new spec engine this weekend so I am pleased we have done a lot of laps and have a lot of useful data to go over tonight. Overall it's great to be back at Monza, and I'm sure tomorrow's qualifying session will be very exciting."