08/06/2007
NEWS STORY
Free practice for Sunday's Canadian Grand Prix got underway at the Circuit Gilles Villeneuve in Montreal today with the Honda Racing F1 Team's Rubens Barrichello and Jenson Button ending the day in 7th and 13th positions respectively. Both Honda drivers spent much of the day working to find a good long-run balance on the low downforce circuit and although good progress was made, there is still work to be done with the RA107 in advance of tomorrow's qualifying session.
Rubens Barrichello: "The team did a great job working to improve the car over the day so I am happy with that. The balance of the car is not yet where I want it to be, however looking at the degradation of the tyres and seeing how we performed this afternoon, we can be positive and work towards a better day tomorrow."
Jenson Button: "We completed all of the work that we planned for today, with both Rubens and I covering a lot of laps which gives us valuable data to work with overnight. It has been a reasonable start to the weekend and although we have some work to do to improve our long-run pace, overall it was a good day."
Jacky Eeckelaert, Engineering Director: "We achieved our planned programme today and completed plenty of running but we have had some problems finding a good long run balance on the option tyre. We suspect this has been the case for some of the other teams also. We have seen quite a significant track evolution between the two sessions, and if the conditions develop as we expect them to, then the track should be more suited to the softer tyre. Our long run pace on the hard tyres was pretty competitive compared to those teams closest to us."
To check out our Canada practice gallery, click here