It was a difficult qualifying session for the Honda Racing F1 Team at Silverstone today. An untimely rain shower led to both drivers being knocked out after Q1 as Rubens Barrichello qualified in 16th position and Jenson Button in 17th.

Rain clouds were looming overhead as Q1 got underway, so both drivers took to the racetrack immediately to capitalise on the dry conditions. Rubens completed one run to set a time of 1:22.510, while Jenson did two laps to post a time of 1:22.312.

The drivers then made subtle changes to the set-up of their RA108s before taking to the track once again. They both improved their times, Rubens lapping in 1:21.512 and Jenson in 1:21.685, but they were still down in 16th and 18th positions respectively as rain began to fall at the southern end of the track,... // pitpass.com

It was a difficult qualifying session for the Honda Racing F1 Team at Silverstone today. An untimely rain shower led to both drivers being knocked out after Q1 as Rubens Barrichello qualified in 16th position and Jenson Button in 17th.

Rain clouds were looming overhead as Q1 got underway, so both drivers took to the racetrack immediately to capitalise on the dry conditions. Rubens completed one run to set a time of 1:22.510, while Jenson did two laps to post a time of 1:22.312.

The drivers then made subtle changes to the set-up of their RA108s before taking to the track once again. They both improved their times, Rubens lapping in 1:21.512 and Jenson in 1:21.685, but they were still down in 16th and 18th positions respectively as rain began to fall at the southern end of the track,... // F1SA

Jenson Button - 7th: "We achieved some useful information from our test programme today, even though the wind has moving been around all afternoon and we lost the majority of our running time this morning. We have a good understanding of the tyres, both the prime and the option, but there is still a lot of work to do as we are not entirely happy with the balance.

"We may be seventh on the timesheets today but that doesn't necessarily reflect our level of competitiveness, and we have a lot to achieve overnight to set ourselves up for qualifying."

Rubens Barrichello - 10th: "I love the Silverstone circuit, so I was disappointed not to have run the first session today due to the problem that we had with the rear suspension. The second session this afternoon was positive with some good... // autosport.com

The Honda Racing F1 Team had a solid opening day of practice for the British Grand Prix at Silverstone today with both Jenson Button and Rubens Barrichello ending the day inside the top 10 on the timesheets.

This morning, the two RA108 cars had completed a total of 11 laps when a rear suspension problem was identified on Rubens' car which required further investigation. As a precaution, both cars remained in the garage whilst this was underway.

By the start of session two, with the cause of the suspension problem rectified, both cars took to the track in earnest. Jenson completed a total of 39 laps and set a fastest lap of 1:20.929, placing him seventh. Rubens completed 33 laps, ending the session just 0.1s behind his team-mate, and in 10th position.

The team will now examine all the... // F1SA