The damage sustained was made worse when, for another race a Honda driver had the unfortunate job of lapping with a front wing under his car.
The team changed Jenson’s nose but as Rubens showed us in Spain, F1 cars simply aren’t meant to have wings underneath them! The Brit retired after 16 laps.
Rubens had to start from the back of the grid, but thanks to great pit stops and a fantastic drive from the Brazilian veteran, in a below par car, Honda managed to salvage at least some positives from an otherwise dismal weekend.
Britain: 6th July 2008
Qualifying
JB: 17
RB: 16
Race
JB: 15
RB: 3!
Arguably Honda’s best race since Brazil 2006, with their first podium finish in over a year. Yet another disappointing Saturday for the team at its home GP. Neither driver looked comfortable and neither made Q2.
After a disappointing qualifying session I don’t think any of the Honda Team expected what followed the next day. Now everyone went on about how great Lewis was in the rain.
As a Brit I would argue against that; I think we are all ‘wet weather specialists’ as basically three quarters of the year we drive in the wet! (Lewis is unfortunate there isn’t a Swiss race, he’d probably ace that).
The weather was very typical for an English July day and whilst this proved disastrous for the Ferraris, Honda were able to capitalise on genius strategy (and as always luck).
Both Jenson and Rubens pulled themselves up the grid. On the damp track both RA108s lined up with wet tyres and by the end of the first lap Rubens had taken six places, Jenson five.
A problem with the drivers second fuel stop lost time but Rubens managed to fight his way up to Second place after fitting extreme wets and even lapped faster than the wet weather specialist!
Perhaps Jenson would have been able to put in a similar performance if he hadn’t hit standing water on lap 38 that ended his race stuck in gravel (though he was struggling with oversteer.)
The huge boost in morale that a home podium bought the team was priceless; so could they manage a one, two finish in Germany?
Though the Podium in Britain was great, these three races were I think a turning point in Honda’s 2008 campaign. From now on the Team would struggle to break into Q2 and would be hampered by a lack of pace. I truly hope the team I love doesn’t hit the wall this time next year!
Just one final comment; I think this will be the last time I mention the ‘Brazilian choice’ at Honda; I received my issue of F1 Racing yesterday and saw their prediction for the 2009 grid.
As I had predicted, F1 Racing saw Jenson and Bruno driving for the Japanese team next year. I really like and admire Bruno Senna, I think he has huge potential. However, I also really like and admire Rubens.
I love the Honda Racing Team but I do not love the way they seem to be treating a true F1 legend. I would argue that the Pressure to have a Senna in a Honda again is probably too much and it probably didn’t matter how well Di Grassi did.
Next three coming up next week.
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