Promising first day for Honda
The Honda Racing F1 Team kicked off its Australian Grand Prix weekend in fine style today, with the team’s third driver Anthony Davidson topping the timesheets in both one-hour practice sessions. Ant completed 54 laps.
Davidson completed 54 laps of the 5.303-kilometre Albert Park track, where he last drove in 2004. His workload included set-up and tyre comparisons, and he set his best lap of 1:26.822s at the end of session two.
Such was Davidson’s progress that Honda’s race drivers, Jenson Button and Rubens Barrichello, were able to limit their mileage and conserve their RA106s. Jenson has a new engine this weekend, as per the FIA’s two-race engine rule, but didn’t complete a flying lap in session one.
In session two Button and Barrichello appeared for the last 20 minutes, when track conditions were at their best, and both men were immediately on the pace. Jenson completed 12 laps, with a best time of 1:27.213s; Rubens did some longer runs to stack up a total of 20 laps, with a fastest of 1:28.075s.
The weather conditions were relatively cool in Melbourne today, with the ambient and track temperatures struggling to climb above 22 and 25 degrees respectively. More of the same is expected for the remainder of the weekend, so the team will need to analyse how the cooler conditions will affect tyre wear when they make their tyre choice this evening.
Jenson Button “It’s been a positive start to the weekend and so far, so good. The circuit had very low grip but we ran through everything we intended to and, most importantly, it’s good that Anthony completed all his test items.”
Rubens Barrichello“I have had a much better Friday today than at the past two races. We had a little problem this morning so it’s good that we got some good running this afternoon but I’m definitely looking a lot more competitive. I hope we can continue like this through the rest of the weekend and it should be a better race for me.”
Anthony Davidson “I’ve had a very positive day today and I’m pleased to be top of the times again. It’s been quite a difficult day in terms of traffic because none of the teams get to drive this circuit outside of the Grand Prix weekend, so there were a lot of cars on track at one time, especially when the circuit evolved towards the end of the second session. I think we’ve done a good job on tyre evaluation and overall we’re looking good. There’s definitely more to come though so if we keep moving forward like we have today we should have a good weekend.”
Gil de Ferran, Sporting Director“We had a good start to the weekend; all three cars ran without any glitches today and were in the top third of the time sheets. Anthony worked hard evaluating the tyres and different set-ups. Despite the fact we are competitive today the drivers are not 100% happy with the car, so there is room for improvement. Tonight we will review all the data and hopefully make some good decisions for tomorrow.”
Shuhei Nakamoto, Management Board Member, Honda Racing F1 Team, Engineering Director, Honda Racing Development “The engine is running well and the lap times were reasonably encouraging. Anthony did another sound job, running more laps than anyone, and topping the times for the third Friday in a row.”
