Jenson Button (GBR) Honda RA107, Australian F1 Grand Prix, Albert Park, Melbourne, 16-18/3/ 2007,

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Teams

• Honda

Drivers

• Jenson Button
• Rubens Barrichello

Honda's dismal fortunes showed no sign of improving during practice for the Malaysian Grand Prix, with the team mystified as to why progress made during testing at Sepang last week has seemingly been undone.

Stung by criticism from their drivers following a lacklustre display in Australia, Honda had hoped the test would have signalled a significant improvement.

But while the team were hopeful they could challenge for the spot in the top ten, Jenson Button and Rubens Barrichello could only manage 15th and 21st places respectively.

Again outpaced by the semi-works Super Aguri team, both Button and Barrichello admit they are a long way from where they want to be following a day in which they struggled with the balance of the RA107.

"Well, a tough day really trying to find a balance," Button said. "Initially the circuit was very dusty but as the track improved through the day we were able to work on the car more. The fact remains however that we are still a long way from where we want to be."

Barrichello was more scathing in the description of his day, adding that the team need to work hard overnight now to recover the ground to their rivals before qualifying.

"It's simply the case that we have had a very bad day," the Brazilian said. "To end the day where I am is obviously extremely frustrating. We were not able to improve the braking stability issues that we have, so all I can say is that we need to look at what we have learned today and try to find a solution that can get us back to where we were during the test last week."

Engineering director Jacky Eckelaert blamed different track conditions for the loss of performance but was confident that progress made towards the end of the second session will allow them to prove more competitive on the Saturday.

"Following a reasonably positive test here last week, which saw some improvement in car performance, we were obviously hoping to carry that progress through into the race weekend," he said.

"We have experienced very different track conditions today compared with those we saw at the test and this has made it difficult to achieve a good balance.

"At the close of the session we had made some progress with Jenson's car, however with Rubens' car we have a specific problem which we have not yet solved and that is something we will be looking into immediately."