Zoom A tough race ahead for Button and Barrichello

Hockenheim was the scene of the most closely-fought qualifying session of the season. The entire grid was separated by two seconds in Q1 and the Honda team improved its RA108 cars with each run.

Jenson Button qualified 14th improving on recent form, while Rubens Barrichello will line up in 18th for tomorrow’s German Grand Prix.

Grip levels had changed a lot between this morning’s final practice session and the start of qualifying, primarily due to the blustery wind conditions. As a result, both Honda drivers took to the track early in Q1 to ascertain what changes needed to be made to their cars. They set their fastest laps of Q1 in the dying moments of the session. Button’s effort of 1:15.993s placed him 15th and just 0.1s shy of a place inside the top ten; Barrichello was 0.2s slower than his team-mate but back in 18th place.

Having progressed through to Q2, Button completed two runs and improved with each lap. His best lap was a 1:15.701s, which placed him 14th and three-tenths shy of a place in the top ten.

Jenson Button
"Realistically we got the best out of the car today, although it is frustrating that we were not quite able to put a complete lap together. On my first run in Q2, the tyres were graining during the last sector, so we tried to look after them on my second run. Unfortunately that meant that they did not work fully in the first sector, putting me two-tenths down on my best lap time halfway round the lap. Once the tyres started working well in the middle sector I was able to gain all of the time back and improve my lap time. So it's a little bit disappointing. However we improved all the way through qualifying today and have generally been working well over the weekend. It's a nice feeling as I haven’t felt totally confident with the car for the last couple of races."

Rubens Barrichello
"The last time that I started 18th on the grid at Hockenheim I won the race in 2000, so you never know what might happen tomorrow! Realistically the car was just not quick enough in a very competitive midfield today. We were losing a couple of tenths in the first sector but it was the long middle sector that really cost us time. We are having to run a compromised downforce set-up because of the straights and that then impacts the third sector through the stadium complex, so it is difficult to hook up a consistently good lap time. We are so close to the limit of the car's performance that if you don't quite get it right, you can lose a lot of places, and that's what happened today. I'm not sure that it is going to rain tomorrow but that's what we need to have a good race."