Mixed feelings for Honda

Tuesday 18th March 2008

Honda boss Nick Fry was in a philosophical mood despite seeing his team deprived of three Constructors' Championship points at the Australian Grand Prix on Sunday.

Rubens Barrichello saw a superb drive come to nothing as the Brazilian was disqualified from sixth place for leaving the pit lane when the red exit light was still on having already been handed a 10-second stop/go penalty for refuelling under a safety car period.

Coupled with Jenson Button's retirement - the Briton was tapped by Sebastian Vettel's Toro Rosso in the first corner mayhem that marked the opening of the new Formula One season - it would be no surprise if a darker mood pervaded the Japanese team's garage.

But after a torrid time during the previous campaign, during which Honda only picked up six points, an upbeat Fry, Honda's CEO, was happy just to see the team in a more competitive position once again.

"It was mixed blessings," he said.

"The car actually ran rather well, was reliable, produced reasonable times but we're disappointed we didn't pick up points through no fault of our own.

"Obviously we had no choice but to bring Rubens in. The car had no fuel in it, it was his scheduled pitstop, we'd already called him and there was no option - so we knew we were going to get a stop/go penalty for refuelling.

"Unfortunately, Rubens did go through the red light at the end of the pitlane. On the other hand it shouldn't have been on because it should only be on for the duration of the safety car driving past the entry and exit of the pitlane.

"In fact the safety car had already gone so it's a little bit unfortunate that it stayed on and didn't go out a couple of seconds earlier, in which case we'd have been okay.

"But that's life."

Fry also felt Button would have had an excellent chance to begin the 2008 season in positive fashion had he not been forced out of a race that eventually saw only seven cars cross the finish line.

"Jenson had a very sensible fuel load on his car and could have come out of this extremely well, but most other people would say the same thing," he added.

Nevertheless, Fry was still relishing the prospect of next weekend's Malaysian Grand Prix, in stark contrast to last term when every race weekend was typified by a sense of depressing inevitability around the Japanese team.

"We're tremendously looking forward to Malaysia because we've obviously got a car which is there or thereabouts," he said.

"It's not as good as we'd like it to be but it's certainly more competitive than anything we had last year, so roll on the next one.

"Both drivers have enjoyed driving the car, it's very stable and predictable and so it's pleasing for them that we've got something that we couldn't quite deliver last year and something we can build on."