Honda drivers seeing progress

The Brazilian driver, whose team are still looking to score their first point of the year, put on his best performance of the season so far in Barcelona, qualifying in 12th position.

Barrichello is now hopeful Honda can keep their momentum and get closer to the top of the field.

"Although we are still far away from where we want to be this is our best qualifying performance of the season so far, so I guess that points towards some small improvement and we can be slightly happier," said Barrichello.

"We started to make some progress here in testing last week and I am hopeful that we can carry this momentum through to tomorrow. We have a good strategy and this should help us to have a better race."

Jenson Button echoed his teammate's comments after Honda put on their best combined performance of the year, with the Briton qualifying in 14th.

"This was a reasonable qualifying session for us today, all things considered," he said. "We are a little bit further up the grid and closer to P10 which is a nice surprise. We have done a good job of setting the car up for the race but I really struggled with the balance this morning and the pace over one lap.

"It was much better this afternoon, although I made a small mistake at turn six and lost some time, which is annoying. It will be an exciting race tomorrow but unfortunately it will be tough to get into the points. We have made some progress though, which is a good sign."