14/08/2007
NEWS STORY
Rubens Barrichello, who finished stone last in the recent Hungarian GP, almost a year after Honda teammate Jenson Button scored his maiden F1 victory, at the same track, has admitted that most of the team's problems this season relate to its new windtunnel.
Writing on his own website, the Brazilian says he hopes for an upturn in form having met up with two of the team's new aero signings recently.
"This last race was not easy at all," admits the nine-time GP winner, who has yet to score a point this season, "mainly because we expected much more.
"Usually the race in Hungaroring is very similar to the one in Monaco, which was a decent race for us and that is why we were so excited about it," he admits. "Right from the start things seemed to go wrong, from the qualifying result to the actual race.
"On the week of the race I went to the factory to visit the two new aerodynamicists who will work with us," he continues, "Loic Bigois who came from Williams and John Owen from BMW. Both of these teams have had great results this year.
"We had a very long talk and they made a great impression. I heard from them exactly what I expected to. They believe that our wind tunnel's calibration is wrong and because of that everything that has been developed has not been effective.
"We will have to change many things even parts of the structure inside the wind tunnel and it will be about a month until we are able to see changes," he reveals. "The best thing is that for us to be sure that next year's car will be good we need to change this year's car to know if the changes are going in the right direction. I'm sure they are, they have to be!"
The Brazilian fails to reveal - or maybe he simply has not been told - of the many recent departures from the team.