United States Grand Prix: Qualifying

The Honda Racing F1 Team's Jenson Button and Rubens Barrichello will line up for the start of tomorrow's United States Grand Prix from the 7th and 8th rows of the grid. They qualified in 13th and 15th positions respectively at the Indianapolis Motor Speedway, which basked in ambient temperatures of up to 35°C.

It was a tough day for the Honda drivers, the challenge of finding a good balance compounded by the heat and evolving track conditions, but both drivers made best use of the car and this afternoon Jenson finally missed out on the top ten by 0.2secs.

Jenson Button		Rubens Barrichello

JENSON BUTTON
Saturday Practice: P15 1:13.318
Qualifying 1: P14 01:13.306
Qualifying 2: P13 01:12.998
Qualifying 3: -
“The car felt good for my first run in Q1, then I had some problems getting started again after the weighbridge and after that the car felt very different. I had to keep having adjustments made to the front wing and we struggled to find a good balance round the whole lap. I got all of the performance possible out of the car for my final run in Q2 and that's where we are really. The times were very close with some of the cars just in front of me, which is a surprise. We will have to see what happens in the race.”

RUBENS BARRICHELLO
Saturday Practice: P18 1:13.573
Qualifying 1: P13 01:13.203
Qualifying 2: P15 01:13.201
Qualifying 3: -
“It has been a tough day for us today. It was very hard to get a real balance in the car and from run to run it felt very different. I had a lot of oversteer on my final run in Q2, so that didn't help me right at the end. I did as much as I could today and am disappointed not to make it into the third qualifying session. We will have to hope that our strategy allows us to make the most of any opportunity to improve during the race and move us through the field.”

JACKY EECKELAERT Engineering Director
“Our drivers qualified in the same positions as they did one week ago in Canada and with what is a very similar car given that there was only one week between races. The car is clearly not fast enough to make it into Q3. We have chosen to focus our set-up on preserving the rear tyres, which are subjected to a heavy duty cycle on this particular track. Let's hope that our consistency pays dividends tomorrow.”

The ‘Brickyard’ produced an exciting and close Qualifying session in Indianapolis today. SUPER AGURI F1 TEAM experienced a difficult day in the garage having to change Anthony to the T-car after he kissed the wall during Free Practice 3. During Qualifying a small mistake by Takuma and an extremely tight grid meant that he just missed out on making it through to Q2 to join Anthony. The SAF1 Team drivers will start the 2007 US Grand Prix in 16th and 18th positions tomorrow.

Anthony Davidson		Takuma Sato

ANTHONY DAVIDSON
Saturday Practice: P13 1:13.069
Qualifying 1: P10 1:13.164
Qualifying 2: P16 1:13.259
Qualifying 3: -
“The team did a really good job today to get me out there into Qualifying this afternoon after I tapped the wall in the last practice session. I had to change over to the T-car and there was a big buzz in the garage - they did a great job. It's brilliant to get through to Q2. It was a great achievement today and so we're looking forward to the race tomorrow.”

TAKUMA SATO
Saturday Practice: P17 1:13.476
Qualifying 1: P18 1:13.477
Qualifying 2: -
Qualifying 3: -
It was a very tough day. I wasn't fully happy with the car this morning, so we changed the set-up for the Qualifying session. It was better but there was traffic during my first run and in the second I went a little deep in Turn One and locked up the front wheel so I lost a good couple of tenths then. Sectors Two and Three were okay, but I needed another half a tenth to get into Q2. It's a shame, but hopefully we have a strong car and I'll have a good race tomorrow.

GRAHAM TAYLOR, Sporting Director
“It was a tough morning. We had a lot to do to get to a place where we were prepared for Qualifying and even then we knew it was going to be really hard as the grid is so tight here. During his performance run at the end of Free Practice 3, Anthony touched the wall coming off Turn 13. Once we looked at the data we saw that the car had taken an impact on some of the componentry over its design criteria, so between the two sessions we had to swap to the T-car. The boys had an uphill struggle within an hour to change everything - engine, set-up, the whole nine yards - and they did a fantastic job. The first run by Anthony showed that the car was good. His engineering crew had him on the circuit at the right time and I think he got the best out of the car. It was unfortunate for Taku. On his second run he just went a bit too deep into Turn One, but the rest of the lap was fantastic and he only just missed going through to Q2.”