Honda vows to fight back at Imola

The Honda Racing F1 Team is determined to get the most out of the three-week Easter break to improve its race day performance in future Grands Prix. Jenson Button further underlined Honda’s potential by claiming pole position in Melbourne but wasn’t able to live up to the team’s high expectations when it counted most on Sunday afternoon as he was plagued by poor grip and suffered an engine failure.

“Jenson had a very difficult time to warm up the tyres at the start and every restart after that, which meant that he progressively lost places in those situations," said Sporting Director, Gil de Ferran. "The same issue troubled both drivers. Then we had an engine failure on the last turn."

“We'll be studying the data to work out the cause of Jenson's engine problem,” confirmed Shuhei Nakamoto, Engineering Director at Honda Racing Development. “We're sorry his efforts did not bring him any points. He drove a strong race but struggled for grip after the safety car periods."

Looking on the brighter side, the team gained some comfort from Rubens Barrichello scoring his first points for the team by finishing seventh – he started from a lowly 16th on the grid after traffic affected his quick lap in qualifying. “Rubens had a tough race through the field and did a good job to finish in the points," said de Ferran. "We were unlucky with him on the second outing for the safety car since we elected to keep him out to gain track position, but the plan didn't work when he encountered traffic.

"Overall we were certainly hoping for more but despite the disappointment we will continue to keep pushing. There are two tests prior to Imola where we will be able to look into some of the issues that afflicted us here," he promised.