Honda gets Brawny for the upcoming season!

Ross Brawn is joining Honda! Yay! :D

Sorry, I just couldn't help myself. Maybe I'll get to reviving this blog back up now that it's the offseason again. :)

Anyhow, here's the tidbit that I'd like to share with the rest of the world. Good news for Jenson and the rest of the crew:

"Brawn named as Honda team principal" from the official Formula1.com site. You can also check out tons of content on Ross, as well as his first official interview with Honda, at the official Honda Racing F1 site.

This Blog is Dead...

This blog is dead... for now. So sorry. I lost a fair amount of interest in blogging, and the will to write about Honda and Jenson given the current state of the team. So sad.

I'm still cheering Jenson on though, and I still check up on news. I just haven't been able to get myself to start posting again.

In the meantime, you can still check out his official site, www.JensonButton.com. It features regular Jenson and race updates, plus tons of discussions and games at the forum.

Oh, and you might want to try out the following free games (don't worry, all you'll need is your browser):

BATracer - A Free Racing Manager Game, one of the best out there, if not the best. Race in everything from F1 to A1, ChampCar, Le Mans, BTCCs, V8s and more! The Jenson forum also has its own private game. I've won the past two seasons, but I'm sitting the current one out. :P

Trophy Manger - My favorite, right up there with BATracer. Trophy Manager is a free, online football (soccer) manager game that gives you control over your very own club and all the responsibilities that come with it. Each country has its own league and its own set of divisions. There are also national teams (my country made it to the semifinal leg of the first ever FITA WC) and international club cups/competitions. It's really fun, and only takes a few minutes of your time to play it. You can even play against some of the people from the forums. Care for a friendly? :)

Jenson gets to testing in Malaysia

From HondaRacingF1.com:

Jenson Button joined the team in Sepang this afternoon to take over the test programme from Rubens for the remainder of the test. He completed a couple of runs to acclimatise himself with the circuit and conditions before working through a chassis set-up evaluation completing 24 laps.

Jenson will complete the final day of testing tomorrow.

The RA107 still isn't showing signs of speed, and Rubens' engine blew out. Ouch.

Nowhere else to go but up

Ouch. That was quite painful to watch. At least Rubens found some pace late and finished ahead of the Aguri. That's about it though. The rest of the race was just miserable for the team, especially Jenson. Getting a drive-through penalty for an already slow car just adds insult to injury.

I'll try to post results and all kinds of reports and Jenson stuff soon. Just feeling quite glum at the moment.

At least there's no way it can get any worse right? Let's hope Honda get their car sorted out by next race, so Jenson can start driving the wheels off of it come race day. One fast, fast lap is good enough for me at this point. Something to give hope at least.

Honda struggles to find pace in qualifying

This was rather bad. One Aguri made it to the top ten, and the other just missed out. The Hondas meanwhile were further back. Makes one wonder if the teams might have accidentaly switched cars during production.

Why on earth are the Aguris running so fast and the Hondas running so slow? We could blame the Bridgestone switch, which the factory Honda team is still getting used to. Or maybe we could blame it on the livery - perhaps the images of Earth simulate the Earth's weight too and slow the car down. Whatever, the Hondas got their butts kicked by the Aguris. And everyone else.

Jenson could only manage 14th, while Rubens didn't even make the first cut, qualifying a lowly 17th.

Here's what Jense had to say, from Formula1.com:

Jenson Button, Honda (14th, 1m 27.264s):
"It hasn't been a good weekend for us so far. Today it was difficult to judge how hard to push the tyres. At the start of the lap I was getting understeer because the tyres were not up to temperature, then later in the lap I was getting oversteer as the rears were going off, which just shows the issues that we have. I got the best out of the car today and right now we are where we are. We'll obviously do what we can for the race, then we have some work to do to start addressing the issues we have identified."

Honda better get this sorted out soon. It's going to be very painful to see the Aguris of all teams finish much higher than them. I mean, the least they could do is finish ahead of those cars. Sigh.

Race starts in just over an hour. Let's hope it won't be so hard to watch.

Button in doubt?

Button up for a tought fight

Jenson Button admits there is a lot of work to do if Honda are to match their expectations after a disappointing performance in the first official practice sessions of the season-opening Australian Grand Prix in Melbourne.

The Somerset man finished the morning session in fifth place but could manage only 14th in afternoon practice as he struggled with the car's stability.

Button has already written off his team's chances of a podium finish here and has expressed doubts about whether they will even be able to secure a top-10 finish during qualifying.

And the 27-year-old believes it is crucial they are able to get to the bottom of the problems that undermine the Honda car.

Has Jenson really written off his chances of a podium finish? I'd like to see him prove himself wrong.

More on the article by Gary Rose at www.sportinglife.com

Could the Hondas really have been running heavy?

From Honda's official press release:

Jacky Eeckelaert, Engineering Director
"Our plan for today was to run through our usual race preparation programme with set-up work during the morning session, then focusing on long runs in the afternoon. In view of the damp conditions, we adapted the programme slightly. Rubens' afternoon was brought to an early conclusion as he spun entering the last corner causing some damage to the car. Unfortunately we were unable to repair it in time to take part in the rest of the session. Jenson completed his planned programme giving us some valuable data to study this evening as we work to improve the balance of the car before qualifying tomorrow."

Okay... so Honda were doing set-up work in the afternoon when they were reasonably quick, and long runs in the afternoon. Hmm... so they were running heavy?

"The cars will now have fresh engines installed overnight, ahead of tomorrow’s opening qualifying session of the year."

Or maybe they were running on slower engines. :D

Super Aguris outpace Honda

So much for being "Honda B". At the second round of free practice on Friday both Ant Davidson and Taku Sato set faster times in their Aguris than their factory Honda counterparts.

Little surprise that both Ferraris topped the afternoon timesheets. But for Honda to be way down in the timesheets AND outpaced by the Super Aguris, customer car or not... well, that might be cause for some concern.

What exactly is wrong with the Honda? There's been a lot of discussion regarding their dismal form over winter testing, specially after projecting themselves among the top runners in this years' field. Are they struggling? Why can't they seem to find any pace?

Your guess is as good as mine. I'd say Honda could be playing coy and are simply playing things down (way down). They could just be focusing on maintaing race pace and reliability after already having privately tested flat out pace. Or they could really be struggling, which is really going to be very disappointing for us fans.

On its own, Honda's engine should perhaps be among the best in the field. But if they really are stuggling then it's very likely that the team is having difficulty setting up and getting the car to drive like it should with those Bridgestones on. I just hope they get things sorted out. Sooner than later too. In the meantime, we'll just have to hope and wait for race day itself.

Anyhow, here's what Jenson had to say about their dismal afternoon run, from Formula1.com:

“It’s quite realistic in a way,” 14th-fastest Jenson Button admitted glumly. “We didn’t have the best winter, we were improving the car all the time but it’s still not where want to be. We are really struggling under braking as many drivers behind us found, we have a stability issue, but that’s not all of it, just a part of it. It’s going to be a tough weekend!”

Somebody please tell me that they're just planning on taking everyone by surprise?

Wet Friday morning kicks off season!

Wet weather racing is always so much more fun to watch and read about. :D

In an excellent start to this year's Formula One season, a damp but drying track provided some exciting moments at the Melbourne track, with times steadily dropping as practice wore on and all the teams seemingly getting in the mix. Conditions like these make it difficult to assess exactly how far along these cars are - i.e. Taku going 11th fastest while Kimi holds out for 19th - so there's still a big air of suspense, at least on my part, for the later practices and the race itself. I'm still dying to see how these cars stack up against one another on bone dry conditions.

Two things I'm sure of at this point though, Fernando Alonso will always be quick, and Jenson Button is an amazing wet weather driver. Both guys were mixing it up rather well eh? Too bad Kimi sat out the latter stages of practice. Oh well. Great start still. Here's a good progressive commentary/recap from Formula One's official website:

A slippery start in Melbourne

Go Jenson GO GO GO! :) :)