Planet-F1

Honda hope to shine in Turkey

Sunday 4th May 2008

Honda boss Ross Brawn is confident the RA108 will perform better in Turkey than it did in Barcelona last weekend.

Jenson Button's sixth-place finish in Spain meant the team scored their first points of the season, but they were a little disappointed wit the poor ride quality of the RA108.

Brawn believes the track in Istanbul will allow them to build on their performance in Spain.

"Istanbul Park is a great race track which our drivers really enjoy," said Brawn.

"Although there is no opportunity to test before this race, we will have some small refinements to the car and aero package to suit the characteristics of this particular circuit.

"I am expecting the RA108 to perform slightly better around Istanbul Park than in Barcelona, where we suffered with ride quality over the bumpy surface, so I believe we can look forward to challenging for the top ten in qualifying and hopefully scoring points again."

Button says the team will hope for a top 10 in qualifying.

"The Spanish Grand Prix was our first major upgrade to the RA108 and the new aero package definitely gave us a performance improvement over the weekend," he said.

"It's good to know that we are improving the car step-by-step and I was able to develop a good understanding of the new developments. The car that we take to Turkey will be essentially the same package; therefore our focus will be getting onto Q3 and qualifying in the top 10."