The Honda Racing F1 Team had a trouble-free opening day of practice at the Istanbul Park circuit. Drivers Jenson Button and Rubens Barrichello completed a high mileage in both 1.5-hour sessions, which they ended in the same positions: Jenson in 14th place and Rubens in 15th.

The weather conditions were extremely hot all day, with the ambient and track temperatures nudging 35 and 50 degrees respectively. That led to tough working conditions for the whole team and had an impact on the handling of the RA107s. Both drivers spent the day dialling out understeer, which they successfully managed to do because they improved their lap times by 0.5s from one session to the next.

The only frustration for the team came midway through the afternoon session, when Rubens’ left rear tyre struck a loose drainage cover from the kerb at turn 10, which damaged the wheel and tyre and may have caused further underlying damage to the car. This caused the session to be stopped for 26 minutes while it was fixed. The Honda Racing F1 Team packed in the laps thereafter to finish the day with a total of 99 laps from both cars.

The track was slippery at the beginning of session one and following an installation lap, both Honda Racing F1 Team drivers opted to wait until more rubber had been laid down before returning to the 5.3-kilometre circuit. Jenson went on to complete 17 laps to be 14th quickest, just 0.1s faster than Rubens, who completed 25 laps.

In session two the drivers took to the track early to continue their set-up and tyre comparison work and, bar the drainage cover delay, they made steady progress throughout. Again they ended in 14th and 15th positions, again separated by just 0.1s.

The team will now study the data from today before honing the set-up of its RA107s in tomorrow morning’s final practice session.

JENSON BUTTON
“Finally, at the end of the session, we seemed to find a reasonable set-up, which is something we had been struggling with throughout the day. I’m much happier with the car now. This morning I didn’t get a good run on either tyre. We did some laps on the option at the end of the day and that seemed to be reasonably consistent. We’ve made good progress over the two sessions and it seems we are getting there.”

RUBENS BARRICHELLO
“The day had been progressing quite well, up to the point where I hit the drain cover. We checked the car and it seemed there was no obvious problem beyond the punctured tyre and damaged wheel, but when running resumed the car didn’t feel very good at all. We need to check everything carefully to ensure there is no underlying damage because things were going reasonably well before that and I hope we can get back to how the car felt earlier in the day.”

JACKY EECKELAERT
Engineering Director
“We have had a relatively straightforward Friday. By the end of the session both drivers found a consistent balance on both hard and medium tyres. The only small problem came when Rubens hit a drain cover which had lifted and was lying on the track. This destroyed the rear left rim and tyre. After that the car balance was not the same, so we have to check the car thoroughly overnight. For tomorrow we will try to reduce the understeer without compromising the traction.”