China Saturday quotes: Honda
Rubens Barrichello - 13th: "It was a really nice lap to progress into Q2 today as I had a slow out-lap because everyone was backed up and I was worried about the lack of grip, so it was a really good effort. I then had probably my best lap around this circuit to make a 1:36.079 by getting everything possible out of the car. I don't think we would have been able to produce anything more than that. I'm pleased with our performance today, particularly after the difficulties that we had in practice yesterday, so we can be very satisfied with our grid position for the race tomorrow."
Jenson Button - 18th: "I was reasonably happy with the balance after practice this morning, but unfortunately the car went away from us in qualifying. We just weren't able to find a good balance this afternoon with a real lack of front grip on the prime tyres and difficulty with traction out of the corners. We need to look into why this happened and why we were unable to get the best out of the car. It will be a tough race from here tomorrow."
Steve Clark, Head of Race & Test Engineering: "As we suggested yesterday, our performance wasn't as bad as it might have appeared on Friday's timesheets. We saw this morning that the option tyre was going to be difficult to get to work, so we took the prime for Q1. This worked well for Rubens, who got the most out of the car, but Jenson didn't have a balance on his last run. With the track warming up in Q2 we saw that the option tyre, which Rubens was running, was a few tenths quicker, so a different tyre choice might have got Jenson through to Q2. In Rubens' second run in Q2, the balance wasn't perfect and he lost a few tenths. Even with a better lap it was unlikely we would have made it into Q3."
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