Despite Rubens Barrichello's disqualification, Nick Fry was happy with Honda's showing in the Australian Grand Prix.
Team CEO happy with turn of speed shown Down Under
Despite seeing driver Rubens Barrichello disqualified from a sixth-place finish in Melbourne, Honda F1 CEO Nick Fry was nonetheless happy with his team's showing in the Australian Grand Prix.
The Brazilian veteran put in a strong performance at Albert Park, holding off world champion Kimi Raikkonen early on before almost running out of fuel during the race's third safety car period.
Knowing full well that Barrichello would incur a 10-second stop-go penalty for refuelling illegally as the safety car circulated, the team elected to bring Barrichello in anyway.
However, the final disqualification came after Barrichello then passed through a red light upon exiting the pitlane - a situation Fry said itself contravened the rulebook given the position of the safety car.
Nevetheless, after showing little in the way of form during pre-season testing, Fry felt the turn of speed shown by both Barrichello and team-mate Jenson Button during the weekend bodes well for future races.
"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."
Casualty
In a race that produced only seven finishers, Fry also felt that Button - who qualified two places behind Barrichello in 12th place - could have figured.
In the event, Button was a first lap casualty after being hit by the Toro Rosso of Sebastian Vettel.
"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," Fry continued.
Fry is now looking ahead to this weekend's Malaysian Grand Prix with confidence - an attribute little in evidence last season when Honda struggled woefully with their RA107 chassis.
"We're tremendously looking forward to Malaysia because we've obviously got a car which is there or thereabouts," he added.
"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."
