HONDA F1

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.”