Another four days of development at Paul Ricard will have given the team chance to work on its Monaco settings, hoping that driver input on the year's most technical circuit may help carry it into the points for the first time.
"At the Paul Ricard test, we evaluated the latest aerodynamic components for the next three races, particularly Monaco and Canada," senior technical director Shuhei Nakamoto reveals, "For the street circuit, downforce is essential so we were running a high downforce set-up on the car. We have acquired a lot of useful data from the test and will use this for the continual development of the RA107. We expect to improve our performance in gradual steps over the next few races."
Despite having to swallow their pride when
Takuma Sato scored
Honda's first point of the year - for
Super Aguri - both Barrichello and Button helped the works team qualify better than it had all season, and are determined to enjoy the challenge of Monaco, where the Brazilian has enjoyed some success over the years.
"Like most drivers, Monaco is one of my favourite races and I have some fantastic memories as I have finished on the podium four times there," Barrichello says, no doubt dreaming of adding to his trophy collection this year, "Monaco is unique in many ways and it certainly has a special place in
F1 history. I particularly enjoy qualifying at Monaco - it's one of the biggest challenges of the year and so important to get right."
Ironically, Monaco resident for the rest of the year, Button will be looking to get out of town while the race is on, in order to give himself a chance to concentrate on the job in hand.
