After the promise of yesterday afternoon’s free practice session, in which Jenson Button set the third fastest time, today’s qualifying session in Valencia ended in disappointment for the Honda Racing F1 Team. Jenson and his team-mate Rubens Barrichello will start tomorrow’s European Grand Prix in 16th and 19th positions respectively.

Lap times around the 5.440km (3.380-mile) street circuit were extremely close throughout Q1. Jenson set his first flying lap, a 1:38.880s, on the harder of Bridgestone’s two tyre compounds and that time placed him in an impressive fifth position after all the drivers had completed one run each. He then waited for the track conditions to improve before switching to the softer and theoretically faster rubber for his final run of Q1, but he had less grip and wasn’t able to improve his lap time.

"It was a really disappointing qualifying today, particularly as we have been quick all weekend,” confirmed Jenson. “My first run on the prime tyres was good but we simply chose the wrong tyre for my final run in Q1. I had no grip with the option and it just wasn't very competitive for us. My final run was slower than my prime run, which shouldn't happen on a circuit which is improving all the time. I'm really disappointed as we have improved the car but today we didn’t make the most of that."

Rubens had an even more torrid time. He was unhappy with the balance of his RA108 throughout this morning’s free practice and he completed 10 laps in Q1 in an effort to find a solution. While he was able to improve his best time by two seconds from the beginning to the end of Q1, it wasn’t enough and his time of 1:39.811s will see him line up in 19th place on the grid tomorrow.

“It has been an incredibly frustrating day for us today,” said the Brazilian. “We were not able to find a balance on the car in practice this morning which affected our preparations for qualifying. This afternoon I particularly struggled with rear locking which cost me a lot of time as I wasn’t able to attack the lap. It's very disappointing to be starting the first race here from so far back on the grid.”

Tomorrow’s inaugural European Grand Prix will take place over 57 laps of the Valencia Street Track, in preparation for which the Honda Racing F1 Team will try to pick an innovative strategy to help its cars finish further up the order.

“From our grid positions the race will certainly be a challenge,” commented Steve Clark, Head of Race and Test Engineering. “If the car is working well tomorrow the drivers will be up against slower cars ahead and we think overtaking is going to be difficult. However, race incidents are likely here. It could be very tricky off-line and, as we have seen from the other series, there are places from which cars are difficult to recover so safety cars are a real possibility. We now need to focus on making our strategy as robust as possible to ensure we are well-placed to take advantage of any opportunities.”