Formula 1 News

2008 Turkish GP, race: Honda quotes 

Ross Brawn, Team Principal: “After a surprisingly uncompetitive qualifying yesterday we were hoping that it would be business as usual for the race today. A few laps in both drivers had poor balance and it was clear that our pace was not enough to challenge for the points. We switched the strategy on both cars from two-stop to a one-stop mid race. This was mainly to defend against the cars behind and this approach proved successful. It also gave us the possibility that we would gain if there was a safety car in the middle part of the race as this was our only realistic chance of points today. We have a track test at the Paul Ricard circuit in France to prepare for Monaco and Montreal, followed by an aero test at Barcelona to validate our next aerodynamic step. We should have some visually interesting new parts for Monaco, the highest downforce circuit so far. However we do not expect Monaco to be the highest downforce track of the year – our calculations show that Singapore will require even more. Montreal is at the opposite end of the spectrum with the demand placed on very high straight line speed.”

Rubens Barrichello: “It was a frustrating race for us today. Unfortunately we did not have the pace to compete and overall I’m disappointed with the performance of the car. I suffered from understeer and traffic in my first stint so we stopped a little bit early to try and get me out into some space. From then on, it was an uneventful run to the end of the race. We have a lot of work to do over the next couple of tests to try to find some pace.”

Jenson Button: “Although I managed to improve slightly on my start position, it was a disappointing race for us. The start was clean and I had a pretty good first lap, however our pace wasn’t as good as we expected it to be during the race. I had a problem on my first stint with the front tyres, caused by the brakes overheating, which cost me a bit of time. We then changed our strategy to a one-stop which worked pretty well. Unfortunately the difference in fuel loads really tells here so it was difficult to hold back the quicker cars behind me who were two-stopping. We need to make some further improvements to the car before we are able to challenge for the points again.”

source: Honda Racing