HONDA F1

Fry does not hide it rain tenders

None of the seats of the two pilots are insured Honda this season, as has warned the team leader Nick Fry. Both Jenson Button and Rubens Barrichello are left without a contract at the end of the year, and Fry said that the team located in Brackley is becoming an attractive proposition for other talented drivers in the market.

Honda are ready to turn their attention to their 2009 car after just seven races into the 2008 season.

The Brackley-based outfit have struggled to keep up with the midfield pack and are a disappointing eighth in the Constructors' Championship.

The team have already signed off the final current year developments and will now put all their design efforts into the car for next year.

"There are just two or three things we are doing with this year's car, so there will be a phased introduction of (new parts) that will start at Silverstone," team principal Ross Brawn was quoted by Autosport.

"It is just a question of making the bits now. The concept work has been done on these new areas and they are being detailed and manufactured at the moment."

Honda's F1 CEO Nick Fry says their poor performances this season left them with little option, but to focus on next year's car.

"What we need to be able to do to beat Ferrari and McLaren on a good day and it is clear we are not going to do that this year."

Nick Fry has denied reports that IndyCar race winner Danica Patrick is scheduled to test for Honda later this year.

According to reports in the Austrian media, Fry has agreed to test Patrick, who claimed her breakthrough Indy victory in Japan earlier this year, when the F1 season ends in November.

"We will put her into our car after the season at the latest and see how quick she is," Fry reportedly told Kronen Zeitung newspaper.

The Honda CEO, though, has denied ever saying this, stating that there are no plans in place to test Patrick.

"There has been no contact between us," he told Autosport.

"But if Danica did want to test one of our cars, we would be more than happy to speak to her about it."

Danica Patrick may after the current Formula 1 season probably her first meters in an F1 car. HondaRacing director Nick Fry has the driver a test in an F1 car of Honda in the prospect. Probably in november this year may include them in a car from the Japanese team driving.

Fry says in Kronen Zeitung: "After the season we will give her the chance to enter a Formula 1 car to test and then we shall see how fast it is." Patrick won earlier this year as the first woman a race in the IRL IndyCar. The U.S. has its ambition to the king class of motorsports never to get under seating compartment.

Rubens survives incident-filled race in Montreal to finish seventh; Jenson comes home 11th.

The Honda Racing F1 Team picked up two more World Championship points this afternoon when Rubens Barrichello finished seventh in a dramatic Canadian Grand Prix. Jenson Button, who started the 70-lap race from the pitlane, came home in 11th place.

Rubens drove a tenacious race from start-to-finish. After starting ninth, his track position was helped on lap 17 by the deployment of the safety car, which resulted in the front-runners pitting and then crashing into each other at the exit of the pitlane. Rubens stayed out and ran second to Nick Heidfeld, before leading the race for seven laps ahead of his only pitstop of the race on lap 36.

Once the race had settled down, Rubens was running fourth when battling with a lack of grip which caused him to run wide going into turn 4 on lap 59. This enabled Timo Glock and Jarno Trulli to squeeze through, dropping him to sixth. Rubens battled hard to defend his position in the remaining 11 laps and whilst Felipe Massa got by, he managed to keep Sebastian Vettel at bay to cross the line in seventh position.

“I’m pleased with the two points today,” said Rubens, “particularly as we thought our chances of a points finish were slim when we started the weekend. It was a very tough race and I have not been feeling well since yesterday due to a cold, which made it an even tougher physical challenge.

“Yesterday I didn’t know if I was going to be well enough to race, so all things considered we did a good job today and I'm pleased to keep up the points-scoring momentum from Monaco."

Jenson, meanwhile, faced an uphill struggle from the pitlane. He ended the opening lap in 20th place, before battling his way up to seventh position prior to making his final pitstop on lap 53. He rejoined in 11th place where he remained for the duration of the race.

"It was a very tough and ultimately disappointing race today,” commented Jenson. “It's always difficult starting from the back of the grid and we were using a set-up that we hadn't run previously this weekend. Things didn't quite go our way with the strategy and safety car which meant I was unable to make any progress up the field by the end of the race.”

Coming away from Canada, Team Principal Ross Brawn said: “We always knew this was going to be a tough race for us but we made the best of the opportunities and came away with more points. That is the approach we need to maintain. We are heading to Barcelona next week ahead of the French Grand Prix (22 June) in Magny-Cours, where the higher downforce characteristics of this track and potentially high temperatures will suit our car better.”

Rubens Barrichello and Jenson Button have their qualification for the Grand Prix of Canada with varying results. Barrichello set a fine performance by the top ten to qualify. Jenson Button had another bad session at the Circuit Gilles Villeneuve in Montreal.

Barrichello: "I am very happy for the team and myself. After we scored the points in Monaco, this is obviously a great result and a super start of the weekend. In hot conditions, the circuit there quickly deteriorated. I absolutely had to the clean lines remain outside it was very smooth. I could use my good experience here today, took a few nice times. The ninth position is nice to start. Tomorrow is a beautiful race. "

Barrichello's teammate Button was again not for the display and was disappointed. Button: "I had a problem with my third gear and that meant the end of my qualification. It is generally so far a bad weekend. We need tomorrow but will see how the race will expire. I have all the opportunities that me forward intervene. "

Button started the race tomorrow from the nineteenth position, as Barrichello may start the ninth.

Rubens did a great job today. Tanks
Honda f1 fan

		driver	team	time	difference	#
1.		L. Hamilton	McLaren	1:15.752		42
2.		R. Kubica	BMW Sauber BMW Sauber	1:16.023	+0.271 +0,271	41
3.		K. Räikkönen	Ferrari	1:16.093	+0.341 +0,341	39
4.		H. Kovalainen	McLaren	1:16.331	+0.579 +0,579	36
5.		F. Massa Bulk	Ferrari	1:16.413	+0.661 +0,661	27
6.		N. Heidfeld	BMW Sauber BMW Sauber	1:16.589	+0.837 +0,837	43
7.		M. Webber	Red Bull Racing Red Bull Racing	1:16.604	+0.852 +0,852	39
8.		N. Rosberg	Williams	1:16.767	+1.015 +1,015	37
9.		S. Vettel	Toro Rosso Toro Rosso	1:17.019	+1.267 +1,267	43
10.		J. Trulli	Toyota	1:17.068	+1.316 +1,316	46
11.		K. Nakajima	Williams	1:17.242	+1.490 +1,490	37
12.		D. Coulthard	Red Bull Racing Red Bull Racing	1:17.334	+1.582 +1,582	29
13.		R. Barrichello	Honda	1:17.462	+1.710 +1,710	39
14.		G. Fisichella	Force India Force India	1:17.508	+1.756 +1,756	39
15.		T. Glock	Toyota	1:17.549	+1.797 +1,797	31
16.		S. Bourdais	Toro Rosso Toro Rosso	1:17.559	+1.807 +1,807	38
17.		F. Alonso	Renault	1:17.644	+1.892 +1,892	30
18.		A. Sutil	Force India Force India	1:17.813	+2.061 +2,061	37
19.		J. Button	Honda	1:17.842	+2.090 +2,090	39
20.		N. Piquet Jr. Piquet Jr.	Renault	1:18.076	+2.324 +2,324	17

		driver	team	time	difference	#
1.		F. Massa Bulk	Ferrari	1:17.553		14
2.		R. Kubica	BMW Sauber BMW Sauber	1:17.809	+0.256 +0,256	12
3.		H. Kovalainen	McLaren	1:18.133	+0.580 +0,580	10
4.		N. Heidfeld	BMW Sauber BMW Sauber	1:18.182	+0.629 +0,629	13
5.		K. Räikkönen	Ferrari	1:18.292	+0.739 +0,739	12
6.		L. Hamilton	McLaren	1:18.303	+0.750 +0,750	8
7.		M. Webber	Red Bull Racing Red Bull Racing	1:18.712	+1.159 +1,159	11
8.		D. Coulthard	Red Bull Racing Red Bull Racing	1:18.809	+1.256 +1,256	12
9.		K. Nakajima	Williams	1:18.971	+1.418 +1,418	24
10.		F. Alonso	Renault	1:19.005	+1.452 +1,452	13
11.		N. Rosberg	Williams	1:19.093	+1.540 +1,540	20
12.		S. Vettel	Toro Rosso Toro Rosso	1:19.228	+1.675 +1,675	21
13.		T. Glock	Toyota	1:19.346	+1.793 +1,793	28
14.		J. Trulli	Toyota	1:19.568	+2.015 +2,015	31
15.		G. Fisichella	Force India Force India	1:19.815	+2.262 +2,262	16
16.		A. Sutil	Force India Force India	1:19.888	+2.335 +2,335	15
17.		N. Piquet Jr. Piquet Jr.	Renault	1:20.091	+2.538 +2,538	23
18.		R. Barrichello	Honda	1:20.173	+2.620 +2,620	17
19.		S. Bourdais	Toro Rosso Toro Rosso	1:20.541	+2.988 +2,988	16
20.		J. Button	Honda	1:21.542	+3.989 +3,989	17

Measuring 4.361 km, the Circuit Gilles Villeneuve plays host to Formula One for the Annual Canadian Grand Prix, the seventh round of the season. The track is notorious for its punishing braking areas, with six slow-speed corners from which drivers drop their speed from over 250 km/h. Here to guide us on a lap of the track is former Williams racer and current Honda tester Alex Wurz, who raced to a podium here last year.

Alex Wurz, Honda (Test Driver):
“Montreal is a nice Grand Prix. It feels quite similar to Australia in that everyone likes going there and there is a great city nearby that offers good restaurants and a vibrant atmosphere. I made my F1 debut at this race in 1997, so I associate it with the moment when it all came together for me and I like going back to Canada as a result.

“Coming straight after Monaco, the cars feel strange to drive in low-downforce trim. They are always sliding around and you have to get your head around the fact that you rarely find a good balance. Tyre graining is also a big issue.

“You arrive at Turn 1 in sixth gear and it's one of those corners that invites you to brake too late. You want to use the lefthand kerb as much as possible and if you brake too late, the car becomes unstable and the kerb feels much worse than it actually is. This corner leads straight into a first-gear right-hander, which is very slippery early on in the weekend but improves as more rubber goes down.

“Turns 3 and 4 make up another chicane and as the track improves you can jump the chicanes and be very aggressive. You run very close to the right-hand barrier at the exit, before positioning the car on the left in preparation for the flat-out right-hander.

“The next chicane is quite bumpy under braking, but you can still brake very late and use the kerb on the left. You have to be careful not to unsettle the car because you need to be flat through the right-hander, which is followed by a long straight. Then you go under a bridge and you're into another chicane, which has only one turn-in point. It's very easy to miss the entry point here and every year we see drivers getting it wrong and going straight on.

“Next comes the hairpin. It is second or third gear, depending on your gear ratios, and it's very important to have good traction at the exit because the longest straight on the lap follows. You're flat-out for 15 seconds, before stamping on the brakes for the final chicane. You try to brake later and later into here, but you have to be careful because things can go wrong very quickly. A small mistake and you'll be in the 'wall of champions' before you know it.

“The two best overtaking points on the lap are into the hairpin and the last chicane, but it's not so easy due to the marbles off-line, especially late in the race.”

Rubens Barrichello hopes his sixth place in Monte Carlo will prove to be a turning point for himself and Honda.

As his team plunged into the midfield in 2007, Barrichello went a whole year without a points finish for the first time in his record-breaking career.

But the scoring drought ended when he made the most of the tricky conditions to come through from 15th on the grid to finish sixth in Monaco last weekend.

"It was very satisfying to score points in Monaco as the car had performed well over the weekend and we deserved a good result from the race," Barrichello said.

"I hope this will be the start of better things to come.

"This team has a lot of potential and it is important that we all maintain our focus, keep working hard and I am confident that the car will continue to improve over the season."

But team principal Ross Brawn sounded a note of caution for the forthcoming Canadian Grand Prix in Montreal, where he believes Honda will be hard-pressed to match its Monaco achievements.

"We were pleased with the pace and performance of the RA108 around Monaco last week and it was encouraging to score further points, particularly with Rubens for the first time this season," Brawn said.

"However Canada is a completely different challenge and the downforce levels required are medium to low, the opposite of Monaco

"Although I am pleased with the progress that the team has made over the last few races, we have been lacking the speed necessary to really maximise long straights, so it will be up to us to get the most from the performance that we have available in the car.

"I am expecting a more challenging weekend than in Monaco."

Honda team principal Ross Brawn has played down the team's chances of repeating their Monaco success in Canada this weekend.

The team are high on confidence after Rubens Barrichello scored his first Championship points of the season with his sixth-place finish in Monte Carlo.

However, Brawn believes the team will have a challenging weekend in Montreal due to their lack of top speed.

"We were pleased with the pace and performance of the RA108 around Monaco last week and it was encouraging to score further points, particularly with Rubens for the first time this season," Brawn said.

"However Canada is a completely different challenge and the downforce levels required are medium to low, the opposite of Monaco.

"Although I am pleased with the progress that the team has made over the last few races, we have been lacking the speed necessary to really maximise long straights, so it will be up to us to get the most from the performance that we have available in the car.

"I am expecting a more challenging weekend than in Monaco."

British F1 driver Jenson Button plans to take part in another triathlon.

The 28-year-old Honda racer, who regularly takes part in such events, finished a competitive 16th of the 250 triathletes - just eight minutes behind the winner - in the Sevenoaks Triathlon in England last month.

He won a similar event in Lanzarote over the winter.

Button's next triathlon outing, it has emerged, will be the tough Nokia Windsor Triathlon, which is regularly named 'event of the year' by the British Triathlon Association.

The event will take place on June 15 in Windsor Castle, Eton College and the River Thames, in the south east of England.

"I don't expect to be 16th at Windsor," Button told The Times. "My aim is to be in the top 10 per cent of the finishers. That will be difficult. It's pretty close stuff."

The veteran of more than 140 Grand Prix starts, and winner of one, revealed that he got into triathlon while training at his favourite off-season destination, Lanzarote, one of the Canary Islands, north of Africa.

"I go to Lanzarote to train at the Club La Santa, which is used by Olympic athletes because it's warm all year round.

They do mini-triathlons there, so I got into doing it," Button explained.

The Windsor triathlon, to feature some professional athletes, features a 42km cycle ride, a 500m river swim and a 10km circuit run.

"There's some stiff competition," Button continued, adding that Olympic rower James Cracknell will be among the 2000 starters.

"I wish I had more time for training because I'm flying a lot for the Grand Prix and that's quite tiring," he added.

Button insists he has thrown off his earlier image as a lazy Playboy and is now among the fittest drivers on the grid.

"Mark Webber takes it very seriously, too. He runs the Webber Challenge in Tasmania. I would love to do it."

Jenson Button says he is focused on 2009 more than this season and has reconciled himself to settling for points rather than podiums for the rest of this year.

Although Honda has regained ground this season after its dismal 2007 campaign, it remains in the upper midfield.

However, with ex-Ferrari man Ross Brawn having joined as team principal late last winter, there is now much more optimism about Honda's long-term prospects even though it looks set to struggle in the short-term.

Button confirmed that he was thinking about Honda's brighter future more than this season's difficulties.

"We are not going to win or get a podium place, I know that,” Button told The Times newspaper.

"Things aren't as good as I would like them to be, but things are starting to pick up.

"Even before we started racing this year we were talking about 2009.

"Things will change.

"We have a goal.

"We now have a proper technical leader in Ross Brawn.”

The British star said he had been able to stay upbeat because even in Honda's darkest hours last year he was earning praise for his determined driving and his construction response to the team's slump.

"Last year, most of the reports about my season were positive," Button said.

"I'm lucky that I've got great people around me who can point out that it's not all bad.”

In a press interview this week, Jenson Button showed no signs of losing patience with Honda or wanting to switch to a rival team.

The interview follows reports at Monaco that negotiations had begun to extend the 28-year-old Briton's contract beyond 2008.

A British newspaper said at Monaco that there is a chance Button will quit the Japanese team 'to chase his dream of winning the drivers' world championship.'

But to the German publication Auto Motor und Sport, Button said he is feeling 'much better' about his seat at Brackley compared with one year ago.

"It's not so much about the results, which are not great yet," he said. "It's that the general feeling has improved. We are making progress at every race."

"The team was good in the first place but it has been strengthened with the right people," said Button, who was delighted with the appointment as Team Principal of Ross Brawn.

Button reiterated that, compared to the miserable situation in 2007, he now sees light at the end of the tunnel.

"I would not have wanted it to stay like last year. I said to (Honda CEO Takeo) Fukui-san that something had to change. I put on the pressure that we should get Ross on board, and the reaction showed me that my opinion is taken seriously."

"When it was official that Ross had signed, I don't think there was one person in the team who was not enthusiastic. Everyone thought: this is the turning point."

"Now I feel that it is worth it to wait."

Button said he is looking forward to next year.

"2009 is a special situation because the rules are changing so much - everyone is going to start from zero. That is our chance," he explained.

Rubens Barrichello says he's not yet ready to quit F1, insisting that he's "driving better than at any other time."

Two weeks ago in Turkey the Brazilian became the most capped F1 driver in the history of the sport, clocking up his 257th race start.

One race later and Barrichello was back in the points for the first time in more than a year, finishing the Monaco GP in sixth place.

And even though his three points were some way off from the ten he would have scored if he's won the race, something he hasn't done since joining Honda, Barrichello reckons it was another step in the right direction for himself and the team.

"I miss winning races - in fact I miss it terribly. That's why I put so much effort into testing and getting things done. I just know that I am prepared whenever the car is ready," he told the official F1 website.

The Brazilian, though, denied that the lack of wins or that fact that he now holds the record for the most grand prix starts mean that this season could be his 'farewell tour'.

"The celebration and the cake and all the appreciation from the other teams has all been very nice - and I was definitely moved to witness all that - but I am still doing my job and Sunday's result has proved that. So why should I want to put all that behind me?"

"I am very motivated and with the joining of Ross Brawn, I definitely feel that we are undergoing a change for the better.

"For sure, the car is not that good yet for what I want to achieve, but right now I have the feeling that I am driving better than at any other time, so all I need is a quick car to perform. My mind still says yes to racing."

Barrichello's Honda deal expires at the end of this season.

Mike Conway wants next year his debut in Formula 1 to make the team at Honda. The Englishman drive this year in GP2 and is already part of the training of the Japanese team. For 2009 he hopes the place of Jenson Button and Rubens Barrichello to be taken.

Conway: "Honda is a good place to start. The results started to come and next year they will still be much higher. "The Englishman is currently tenth in the GP2 championship with ten points. Conway has a Martin Brundle and Mark Blundell two former Formula 1 drivers will act as.