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A tough day

Jenson Button (15th, 1:23.263): "Today was really important as I didn't get any testing mileage last week due to the bad weather we had here on the final day, so it was good to get some laps in with the new developments on the car. We haven't found the best set-up yet as I was struggling with the balance today, but I'm confident that we will find the improvements tomorrow. After the test last week, our expectations were to be challenging for a place in the final part of qualifying and the top ten. We achieved this in Bahrain and given the improvements made to the car I hope we have taken enough of a step forward to do this again."

Rubens Barrichello (17th, 1:23.415): "We've had a tough day today and the main challenge has been to get the car working in the same way that it did at the test last week. The balance and feel of the car was completely different today, so we had to really work around the set-up trying to rediscover the feeling we had from the test. We have a lot of work to do tonight in terms of studying the data to understand where the issues lie. I felt very confident after the test, and although there is an improvement in the car here, we still have work to do to achieve our expectations progressing to the third session of qualifying. It's going to be difficult but not impossible."

Steve Clark, Head of Race & Test Engineering: "We tested the new package here last week and have incorporated elements of this into our race weekend specification. The track conditions are completely different today compared to the end of the test and our task for the remainder of the weekend is to tune the car to find a good balance for qualifying and the race. The only real indication of the step forward that we have made will be in qualifying tomorrow when we will know whether we have moved forward in relation to our competitors. As always, the main challenge is getting the best out of the car for qualifying and the race. We test frequently here at Barcelona, however track and weather conditions change and finding a good balance is crucial to achieving the optimum laptime. We have been making steady progress so far, but with the field being so tight this year, even getting through the first qualifying session requires maximum focus. Our target will be to get both cars into the top ten."

Written: Fri, 25 Apr 2008 17:00:04