Australia Sunday quotes: Honda

"The signs from the weekend show that this car has great potential and the guys back at the factory have done a fantastic job over the last few weeks on its development. It was good to complete a full race distance to increase our understanding of the car. We'll now look forward to Malaysia and optimising the performance of the car there."

Jenson Button - DNF: "I got a good start off the line, getting past Alonso and running alongside Vettel. Unfortunately it was just a racing incident that caused the damage as we were going three or four cars abreast down to the very narrow and quick first corner. I tapped Vettel in the sidepod which seemed to spin him and then he turned in and hit my rear wheel as I was going past.

"I thought that I could get back to the garage and see if the car could be fixed, but the damage was too bad to continue as the rear left corner trackrod was broken. It's been a good opening weekend for us. We're encouraged by our performance and I'm now looking ahead to Malaysia next week and getting back in the car there."

Ross Brawn, team principal: "Shortly after we called Rubens in for the second of two planned pitstops, Timo Glock had a crash and the safety car was deployed. We had no alternative but to continue to bring him in because he was out of fuel, although we realised that the pitlane was going to be closed due to the safety car and that this would result in a 10-second stop-go penalty.

During the pitstop the lollipop was lifted just a fraction early while the fuel hose was just coming off the car. After the pitstop Rubens exited the pitlane when the lights were still red and obviously this is in breach of the regulations. A tough set of circumstances after an otherwise very committed drive by Rubens. He got a good start and was able to keep Kimi Raikkonen behind him for 19 laps, so it is the positives that we take away from this weekend.

"In qualifying we saw that the pace of the car was in the midfield and today's race confirmed that we have the potential to fight for points, which is our target. The aerodynamic package for Melbourne has worked well but a further step is required to move us up the grid and enable us to be a regular contender in Q3."