Barrichello tells Honda to calm down

The Brazilian, forced to use the spare car for qualifying and limited to just one flying lap, qualified 19th at Sepang. British teammate Jenson Button was 15th.

Barrichello said the Japanese team, winners with Button in Hungary last year, were trying to do too much in their attempts to find the right package and the lack of coordination was punishing them.

"I had to use the T (spare) car, which was not set up for me, and on top of that we were late out and I only had one lap. It was a bit of a struggle," Barrichello told reporters.

"Everyone needs to calm down. We need to go back to Europe, sit down and check things out. We have tried a lot of things but not one thing seems to be working."

Barrichello called on his team to put more effort into working together.

"The qualifying was not right," he said. "We need to use the human side to sort things out. The car is bad, we can't do anything about that.

"In qualifying in Melbourne, the car was hitting the ground like never before and here in Sepang it was not set up for me. What can I do? I'm just like a passenger."

Button acknowledged the team had a problem but believed they could still fight back and become stronger than ever.

"There is a lot going on," said the Englishman, who qualified on the front row for last year's race in Malaysia and finished third.

"We are a team that probably hasn't got it together for a whole season. But we are good at pulling ourselves out of a difficult position and that's what we are going to do," he said.

"They are working very hard in the factory. Maybe this is a good thing for the long term. We can realize things are not going in the right direction and make it better."

Honda were fourth in the constructors' standings last season while Button and Barrichello finished sixth and seventh respectively.