Honda drivers say more speed needed

Although third driver Anthony Davidson impressed with the second fastest time in practice on Thursday, despite a crash in the afternoon, Button and Barrichello were less happy with their performance.

Button, who ended the day ninth on the timesheets, said: "It's been tough all day today and the lap time hasn't been there. On the last run we changed the set-up and it seemed to improve the car quite a bit.

"What you need at this circuit is confidence and I'm getting more and more confident with the set-up of the car here. We still need to work on our competitiveness for qualifying because we are not there yet."

Thirteenth fastest Barrichello added: "I think today has shown that it is going to be very hectic in qualifying this weekend with the traffic.

"Apart from that the car is running well. It's not fast enough at the moment; I'm lacking a lot of traction and we need to work on our race pace. I'm quite confident that the car is quick and we just need to make sure that it's fast enough for Sunday now."

Davidson could not hide his disappointment at his early exit from proceedings, after hitting the barriers at Ste. Devote and knocking a corner off his car.

"I'm obviously extremely disappointed to end the day like this after running so well to end both sessions in second position," he explained. "I made a small mistake when I locked up the inside front, hit the barrier at turn one and this unfortunately created a lot of damage to the left front of the car.

"Up until that point the day had gone very well and the car was feeling really good, so it was a shame that we were unable to complete the tyre comparison. I love driving here and I think both qualifying and the race will be very exciting."