Lucky Strike BAR Honda Strikes Again With Another Podium Finish
05-24-2004, 10:15 AM
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Lucky Strike BAR Honda Strikes Again With Another Podium Finish
Monaco - May, 23 2004 -- Jenson Button drove his BAR Honda to an impressive second place in the twisty streets of Monaco. Button finished a mere 0.497 seconds behind pole sitter and winner Jarno Trulli. Honda qualified third and eigth for the race with Button and Takuma Sato. But, they moved up one spot on the grid to second and seventh respectively for an engine change by Ralf Schumacher.
Honda started the race weekend off by sitting second, third and seventh at the end of Free Practice One with Button, Sato and test driver Anthony Davidson holding the respective positions. Free Practice Two again saw a strong showing by the Honda drivers with Davidson, Button and Sato getting second, sixth and seventh respectively. Free Practice Three had Button in fourth and Sato holding steady at eigth place. Free Practice Four, the last practice session before pre qualifying, had another strong Honda run with third place being taken by Sato and teammate Button holding sixth on the time charts.
Pre qualifying saw Button and Sato pull off a time that was good for fourth and seventh respectively. Pre qualifying determines the order in which the drivers run for the qualifying session, the driver who gets pole in pre qualifying starts last for the qualifying session. After the engine change by Ralf Schumacher the Honda drivers found them selves lined up second and seventh on the grid for the race.
The start of the race was aborted because of Olivier Panis stalling his Toyota pulling into his starting spot on the grid. Hence, the 78-lap race was shortened to a 77-lap race as engineers sprinted to keep the tires warm and connect the fans to the cars to prevent them overheating. When the race eventually started from a standing start Takuma Sato was off to a blinding start getting past Michael Schumacher, Kimi Raikonnen and Rubens Barichello to be upto fourth spot from his seventh starting position at the end of turn one. Button got off to a great start, but couldn’t hold off the impressive launch my Alonso’s Renault from third and was battling with his teammate for position going into turn one. Sadly, Sato’s race was short lived as his Honda V10 engine suffered a colossal failure on the third lap. In the dense smoke the Sauber of Giancarlo Fisichella and the McLaren of David Coulthard made contact with the Sauber landing on its side. Thankfully no one was hurt and the race was stopped under the safety car.
From then on until the end of the first pit stops the race was relatively incident free due to the lack of passing space on the tight street circuit of Monaco. At end of the first set of pitstops Button was pushed back to fifth behind Raikonnen and Michael Schumacher who jumped to third following some interesting pit strategy. Then all of a sudden there were all sorts of drama, Raikonnen dropped out of fourth due to engine troubles and suddenly Button was in fourth position hunting Michael Schumacher. An accident in the tunnel involving the Renault of Alonso and the Williams of Ralf Schumacher saw Alonso finding himself on the retaining wall and his race done for the day. The safety car was once more deployed and Trulli and Button peeled into the pits to leave Michael Schumacher leading the race. But, that lead was short lived as Schumacher tangled with Juan Pablo Montoya in the tunnel in what appeared to be a freak accident with Schumacher attempting to get heat into his tires and Montoya running into his sides. With the Ferrari gone the stage was set for an exciting race to the finish. When the safety car peeled off into the pits it was the Renault of Trulli in first followed by the Honda of Button. Button started pulling off fast laps and the gap started dropping from 4.4 seconds to 0.4 seconds with one lap to go. But, its one thing catching up to a driver at Monaco and another passing them and thus the race ended with Trulli winning and Button coming in second position followed by the Ferrari of Barichello.
Button consolidated his position in third in the championship with 32 points, a mere six points behind Barichello. Honda also consolidated their third position in the team championship with 40 points, just 12 points behind Renault.
Stay tuned as the teams take to the famous Nurburgring circuit next weekend. Will Button get his first win of the season? Only time will tell.
- Sean Banerjee
Honda started the race weekend off by sitting second, third and seventh at the end of Free Practice One with Button, Sato and test driver Anthony Davidson holding the respective positions. Free Practice Two again saw a strong showing by the Honda drivers with Davidson, Button and Sato getting second, sixth and seventh respectively. Free Practice Three had Button in fourth and Sato holding steady at eigth place. Free Practice Four, the last practice session before pre qualifying, had another strong Honda run with third place being taken by Sato and teammate Button holding sixth on the time charts.
Pre qualifying saw Button and Sato pull off a time that was good for fourth and seventh respectively. Pre qualifying determines the order in which the drivers run for the qualifying session, the driver who gets pole in pre qualifying starts last for the qualifying session. After the engine change by Ralf Schumacher the Honda drivers found them selves lined up second and seventh on the grid for the race.
The start of the race was aborted because of Olivier Panis stalling his Toyota pulling into his starting spot on the grid. Hence, the 78-lap race was shortened to a 77-lap race as engineers sprinted to keep the tires warm and connect the fans to the cars to prevent them overheating. When the race eventually started from a standing start Takuma Sato was off to a blinding start getting past Michael Schumacher, Kimi Raikonnen and Rubens Barichello to be upto fourth spot from his seventh starting position at the end of turn one. Button got off to a great start, but couldn’t hold off the impressive launch my Alonso’s Renault from third and was battling with his teammate for position going into turn one. Sadly, Sato’s race was short lived as his Honda V10 engine suffered a colossal failure on the third lap. In the dense smoke the Sauber of Giancarlo Fisichella and the McLaren of David Coulthard made contact with the Sauber landing on its side. Thankfully no one was hurt and the race was stopped under the safety car.
From then on until the end of the first pit stops the race was relatively incident free due to the lack of passing space on the tight street circuit of Monaco. At end of the first set of pitstops Button was pushed back to fifth behind Raikonnen and Michael Schumacher who jumped to third following some interesting pit strategy. Then all of a sudden there were all sorts of drama, Raikonnen dropped out of fourth due to engine troubles and suddenly Button was in fourth position hunting Michael Schumacher. An accident in the tunnel involving the Renault of Alonso and the Williams of Ralf Schumacher saw Alonso finding himself on the retaining wall and his race done for the day. The safety car was once more deployed and Trulli and Button peeled into the pits to leave Michael Schumacher leading the race. But, that lead was short lived as Schumacher tangled with Juan Pablo Montoya in the tunnel in what appeared to be a freak accident with Schumacher attempting to get heat into his tires and Montoya running into his sides. With the Ferrari gone the stage was set for an exciting race to the finish. When the safety car peeled off into the pits it was the Renault of Trulli in first followed by the Honda of Button. Button started pulling off fast laps and the gap started dropping from 4.4 seconds to 0.4 seconds with one lap to go. But, its one thing catching up to a driver at Monaco and another passing them and thus the race ended with Trulli winning and Button coming in second position followed by the Ferrari of Barichello.
Button consolidated his position in third in the championship with 32 points, a mere six points behind Barichello. Honda also consolidated their third position in the team championship with 40 points, just 12 points behind Renault.
Stay tuned as the teams take to the famous Nurburgring circuit next weekend. Will Button get his first win of the season? Only time will tell.
- Sean Banerjee
05-24-2004, 10:39 AM
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Please leave feedback either in this thread or the one in Automotive news and rumors or the one I just created so I can make these articles better.
Next week:
Nurburgring race
88th Indy 500
Pictures forthcoming once I get the ok from other Formula 1 sites.
Next week:
Nurburgring race
88th Indy 500
Pictures forthcoming once I get the ok from other Formula 1 sites.
05-24-2004, 03:09 PM
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Originally Posted by axemansean
Rubens Barichello and I stated that in the article too. 
(I even used ctrl-F too)
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