Turkish Grand Prix

2nd Free Practice

1 K. Räikkönen 1:27.543 30

2 L. Hamilton 1:27.579 31

3 F. Massa 1:27.682 29

4 D. Coulthard 1:27.763 24

5 H. Kovalainen 1:27.954 27

6 R. Kubica 1:28.431 29

7 J. Trulli 1:28.619 29

8 K. Nakajima 1:28.664 27

9 F. Alonso 1:28.681 26

10 N. Heidfeld 1:28.817 31

11 J. Button 1:28.826 28

12 T. Glock 1:28.849 26

13 N. Rosberg 1:28.907 29

14 G. Fisichella 1:29.008 35

15 R. Barrichello 1:29.024 22

16 N. Piquet jr. 1:29.212 26

17 S. Vettel 1:29.462 30

18 S. Bourdais 1:29.630 32

19 M. Webber 1:29.633 4

20 A. Sutil 1:30.832 9

luno, you are a goddess

thank you

Honda hopeful after practice

09 May 2008

Honda worked through a detailed set-up programme with both RA108 cars, honing the aerodynamic package to the demands of the 5.338km track. They ran reliably throughout the two 1.5-hour sessions, providing Jenson Button and Rubens Barrichello with a good baseline from which to progress through the remainder of the race weekend.

At the end of the day Jenson was 11th overall, while Rubens finished 15th on the timesheets.

"We made a lot of changes to the car after this morning when I was struggling with a lack of grip on initial turn in which you really need around here," said Button. "This afternoon was much better right from the start of the session. We tried a lot of different things on the set-up and I'm confident that we know which direction to take for the rest of the weekend. This circuit is very tough without traction control and you could see that a lot of people were making mistakes but that does make it more fun to watch and drive. I was certainly enjoying it out there! The car is working better on the smoother asphalt here and we have made some changes to help with the ride quality, so for me the car feels better than in Barcelona."

Barrichello commented, "The car was nicely balanced in the morning and we were pleased with our progress. However we made a mechanical change over lunch which changed the balance. It was too big a change to go back in the time available so we have some work to do overnight to understand what has changed. We should be able to get the car back to how it felt this morning, then I believe we have a good chance of getting through to Q3 tomorrow."

Engineering chief Steve Clark added, "The sessions ran without any incident on either car which is always good. The damp track at the start of the morning, the rain for the start of the second session and then the red flag caused by Webber's crash of course meant that we could not stick to the original plan. This is the same for everyone and something we just had to deal with."

Turkish Grand Prix

3rd Free Practice

1 M. Webber 1:27.030 16

2 F. Alonso 1:27.172 13

3 D. Coulthard 1:27.193 15

4 N. Rosberg 1:27.365 16

5 F. Massa 1:27.530 13

6 J. Trulli 1:27.614 15

7 L. Hamilton 1:27.658 18

8 T. Glock 1:27.733 22

9 J. Button 1:27.766 16

10 N. Piquet jr. 1:27.781 14

11 K. Räikkönen 1:27.837 14

12 H. Kovalainen 1:27.849 13

13 S. Vettel 1:27.899 18

14 R. Barrichello 1:27.946 14

15 S. Bourdais 1:27.948 17

16 R. Kubica 1:27.971 16

17 K. Nakajima 1:28.301 14

18 G. Fisichella 1:28.573 18

19 N. Heidfeld 1:28.655 19

20 A. Sutil 1:29.131 19

Turkish Grand Prix

Qualifying

1 F. Massa 1:27.617

2 H. Kovalainen 1:27.808

3 L. Hamilton 1:27.923

4 K. Räikkönen 1:27.936

5 R. Kubica 1:28.390

6 M. Webber 1:28.417

7 F. Alonso 1:28.422

8 J. Trulli 1:28.836

9 N. Heidfeld 1:28.882

10 D. Coulthard 1:29.959

11 N. Rosberg 1:27.012

12 R. Barrichello 1:27.219

13 J. Button 1:27.298

14 S. Vettel 1:27.412

15 T. Glock 1:27.806

16 K. Nakajima 1:27.547

17 N. Piquet jr. 1:27.568

18 S. Bourdais 1:27.568

19 G. Fisichella 1:27.807

20 A. Sutil 1:28.325

Honda misses out on top ten

Following a frustrating qualifying session at Istanbul Park, the Honda team will start tomorrow's Turkish Grand Prix from the sixth and seventh rows of the grid. Rubens Barrichello will line up in 12th place and Jenson Button 13th, after the pair set lap times less than 0.1s apart.

"It was a good effort from everyone today however unfortunately we are not as fast as we thought we might be here in Turkey," said Barrichello. "It is a balance problem, rather than the tyres or grip levels, and I believe we achieved the best that we could today. I could not get the car to perform well over the whole lap. The first and second sector were good, but the third sector was not working for us. Realistically this is where the car is at the moment. We need another step to make us a regular qualifier into Q3."

Button commented, "I have to be reasonably pleased with 13th as we were struggling to get the tyres working in qualifying today. Q1 was not too bad and we completed both runs on the prime tyre. We switched to the option for my first run in Q2 as everyone seemed to be going quicker on that tyre but for some reason the option didn't work for me and I had no grip. So we went back to the prime which should be about three-tenths slower around here so 13th is not too bad. It's annoying that we can't get the option to work but our prime tyre pace is very good, particularly over longer runs."

Honda chief engineer Steve Clark added, "The issues we had were with the tyres and trying to get grip from the prime or a balance on the option tyre. We saw this morning that the two tyres behaved differently and the two drivers split their strategy in Q1 because of this. In the second session neither car had the pace to get into the top ten. We had no problems aside from being able to get the most out of the tyres, so obviously this is a disappointment as we felt that we had made a little more progress here."

Turkish Grand Prix

Turkish Grand Prix

Turkish Grand Prix

Turkish Grand Prix

David & Jenson

Formula One drivers to hit Monaco catwalk for charity

The next port of call for the Formula One fraternity will be the Monaco Grand Prix later this month, and though glamour is never in short supply in Monte Carlo, this year it's set to get an even bigger sprinkling thanks to a charity catwalk show and auction.

Organised by Amber Fashion and raising funds for the Elton John Aids Foundation, the star-studded event will be held on the Friday evening, with some rather famous faces acting as fashion models.

Formula One drivers Lewis Hamilton, Nico Rosberg, Jenson Button, Nelson Piquet, Vitantonio Liuzzi, Mark Webber, David Coulthard and Adrian Sutil are all expected to grace the catwalk, as they try their hand at modelling FORM, Petra Ecclestone’s new luxury menswear collection, and there could even be a star turn by world champion Kimi Raikkonen.

The drivers’ wives and girlfriends and several world-famous supermodels will also feature, and with actress Elizabeth Hurley’s haute couture swimwear range, Jimmy Choo shoes, Chopard jewellery and Isabell Kristensen’s evening gowns all set to be modelled, those taking part will be spoilt for choice.

Following the catwalk event, guests will be invited to bid for a selection of luxurious lots to raise money for the Aids Foundation. Items on offer include a week on Force India co-owner Dr Vijay Mallya’s 95-metre yacht, the Indian Empress, and a piano used by Elton John to write and record the Grammy-nominated ‘Songs from the West Coast’, signed by 17 international musicians.

With legendary auctioneer Charlie Ross on hand to help boost bids, TV presenters Steve Rider and Tamara Ecclestone in charge of hosting duties and a Martini-sponsored party, Monaco’s glitterati are expected to be out in force. The event will be held at the Le Meridien Beach Plaza Hotel on Friday, May 23.

Button to contest another triathlon

British F1 driver Jenson Button plans to take part in another triathlon.

The 28-year-old Honda racer, who regularly takes part in such events, finished a competitive 16th of the 250 triathletes - just eight minutes behind the winner - in the Sevenoaks Triathlon in England last month.

He won a similar event in Lanzarote over the winter.

Button's next triathlon outing, it has emerged, will be the tough Nokia Windsor Triathlon, which is regularly named 'event of the year' by the British Triathlon Association.

The event will take place on June 15 in Windsor Castle, Eton College and the River Thames, in the south east of England.

"I don't expect to be 16th at Windsor," Button told The Times. "My aim is to be in the top 10 per cent of the finishers. That will be difficult. It's pretty close stuff."

The veteran of more than 140 Grand Prix starts, and winner of one, revealed that he got into triathlon while training at his favourite off-season destination, Lanzarote, one of the Canary Islands, north of Africa.

"I go to Lanzarote to train at the Club La Santa, which is used by Olympic athletes because it's warm all year round.

They do mini-triathlons there, so I got into doing it," Button explained.

The Windsor triathlon, to feature some professional athletes, features a 42km cycle ride, a 500m river swim and a 10km circuit run.

"There's some stiff competition," Button continued, adding that Olympic rower James Cracknell will be among the 2000 starters.

"I wish I had more time for training because I'm flying a lot for the Grand Prix and that's quite tiring," he added.

Button insists he has thrown off his earlier image as a lazy Playboy and is now among the fittest drivers on the grid.

"Mark Webber takes it very seriously, too. He runs the Webber Challenge in Tasmania. I would love to do it."

Grand Prix of Canada - 8 June 2008

Qualifying

1 L. Hamilton 1:17.886

2 R. Kubica 1:18.498

3 K. Räikkönen 1:18.735

4 F. Alonso 1:18.746

5 N. Rosberg 1:18.844

6 F. Massa 1:19.048

7 H. Kovalainen 1:19.089

8 N. Heidfeld 1:19.633

9 R. Barrichello 1:20.848

10 M. Webber no time

11 T. Glock 1:18.031

12 K. Nakajima 1:18.062

13 D. Coulthard 1:18.238

14 J. Trulli 1:18.327

15 N. Piquet jr. 1:18.393

16 S. Bourdais 1:18.916

17 A. Sutil 1:19.108

18 G. Fisichella 1:19.165

19 J. Button 1:23.565

20 S. Vettel no time

Grand Prix of Canada - 8 June 2008

Race

1 R. Kubica 1:36:24.447

2 N. Heidfeld + 16.495

3 D. Coulthard + 23.352

4 T. Glock + 42.627

5 F. Massa + 43.934

6 J. Trulli + 47.775

7 R. Barrichello + 53.597

8 S. Vettel + 54.120

9 H. Kovalainen + 54.433

10 N. Rosberg + 57.749

11 J. Button + 1:17.540

12 M. Webber + 1:21.229

13 S. Bourdais + 1 laps

Did not finish

14 G. Fisichella + 17 laps

15 K. Nakajima + 23 laps

16 F. Alonso + 25 laps

17 N. Piquet jr. + 29 laps

18 K. Räikkönen + 50 laps

19 L. Hamilton + 50 laps

20 A. Sutil + 56 laps

Grand Prix of Canada

French Grand Prix

1st Free Practice

1 F. Massa 1:15.306 22

2 L. Hamilton 1:16.002 22

3 H. Kovalainen 1:16.055 20

4 K. Räikkönen 1:16.073 21

5 R. Kubica 1:16.377 19

6 F. Alonso 1:16.400 23

7 J. Trulli 1:16.758 32

8 S. Vettel 1:16.838 27

9 N. Heidfeld 1:16.870 21

10 T. Glock 1:16.886 31

11 N. Piquet jr. 1:17.063 31

12 D. Coulthard 1:17.234 21

13 M. Webber 1:17.269 22

14 N. Rosberg 1:17.394 30

15 R. Barrichello 1:17.491 25

16 S. Bourdais 1:17.683 27

17 K. Nakajima 1:17.696 25

18 J. Button 1:17.928 21

19 G. Fisichella 1:18.072 27

20 A. Sutil 1:18.673 13

French Grand Prix

2nd Free Practice

1 F. Alonso 1:15.778 37

2 F. Massa 1:15.854 24

3 K. Räikkönen 1:15.999 42

4 L. Hamilton 1:16.232 28

5 S. Vettel 1:16.298 42

6 R. Kubica 1:16.317 35

7 H. Kovalainen 1:16.340 36

8 N. Heidfeld 1:16.458 43

9 N. Piquet jr. 1:16.543 39

10 D. Coulthard 1:16.572 36

11 N. Rosberg 1:16.682 42

12 J. Trulli 1:16.743 43

13 S. Bourdais 1:16.758 42

14 K. Nakajima 1:17.002 32

15 T. Glock 1:17.092 39

16 M. Webber 1:17.106 38

17 J. Button 1:17.244 37

18 G. Fisichella 1:17.394 42

19 R. Barrichello 1:17.591 27

20 A. Sutil 1:17.868 33