25/05/2006
NEWS STORY
The Honda Racing F1 Team's third driver Anthony Davidson ended both of today's free practice sessions in 2nd position, despite his second session being curtailed halfway through when he locked up his front left wheel and hit the tyre barrier at St Devote. Until that point Anthony had been demonstrating that the RA106 is working well here this weekend as he conducted the majority of the Honda team's running this morning and completed the most laps of all of the drivers.
This afternoon, Jenson Button and Rubens Barrichello took over the tyre comparison work to end the day as the 6th and 10th fastest race drivers, whilst also getting a taste of just how frenetic tomorrow's qualifying session is likely to prove as this tight and twisty street circuit gets its first taste of the new shoot-out system.
Anthony Davidson: "I'm obviously extremely disappointed to end the day like this after running so well to end both sessions in 2nd position. I made a small mistake when I locked up the inside front, hit the barrier at turn 1 and this unfortunately created a lot of damage to the left front of the car. Up until that point the day had gone very well and the car was feeling really good, so it was a shame that we were unable to complete the tyre comparison. I love driving here and I think both qualifying and the race will be very exciting."
Jenson Button: "It's been tough all day today and the lap time hasn't been there. On the last run we changed the set-up and it seemed to improve the car quite a bit. What you need at this circuit is confidence and I'm getting more and more confident with the set-up of the car here. We still need to work on our competitiveness for qualifying because we are not there yet."
Rubens Barrichello: "I think today has shown that it is going to be very hectic in qualifying this weekend with the traffic. Apart from that the car is running well. It's not fast enough at the moment; I'm lacking a lot of traction and we need to work on our race pace. I'm quite confident that the car is quick and we just need to make sure that it's fast enough for Sunday now."
Gil de Ferran, Sporting Director: "Anthony was quite fast over both a short and a long run, especially if you consider how early in the session he achieved his fastest lap. However, as a result of his accident we were unable to complete the whole programme that had been planned for him. Overall we still collected plenty of information to help make a decision on the tyres and to improve the race cars before Saturday. Today also gave us a taste of how hectic and exciting qualifying is going to be!"
Shuhei Nakamoto, Management Board Member - Honda Racing F1 Team, Engineering Director - Honda Racing Development: "It was a fairly normal Friday for us - if you can ever call Monaco normal! This is the second weekend for both race drivers' engines but despite that we have done a lot of laps and have generally been competitive. It was a shame for Anthony to miss out on the chance for Friday pole but he did a lot of laps and helped us to gain vital data."
To check out our Monaco free practice gallery, click here