Brawn Grand Prix is barely one week old but the team formerly known as Honda is already shocking the establishment. If Button and Barrichello had shown a lot of promise in the first two days of testing, running in very competitive times, no one was prepared to see the Brit shatter the 2009-spec cars lap record and beat everyone else by a full second! And that on a day where Felipe Massa did a low fuel run at the end of the morning, as Ferrari was doing a qualifying simulation!
On top of being quick the new BGP001 proved to be reliable, as Jenson Button managed to complete 127 laps, including a Grand Prix simulation, with two pit stops to get the race team up to speed and he was, obviously, delighted with the way things are going: "It's been good, isn't it? The car was straight out of the box and on top of that we managed to complete a lot of laps today. Up to now the car has completed 1700 kilometres and the more miles we manage to get, the better. We're obviously doing well, but we have to bare in mind that what we have here and will have in Jerez next week is what we'll have in Melbourne, while I'm sure the other teams will bring quite a few new parts. In any case we're obviously surprising people and I love surprising people!"
On the long runs, though, the BGP001 was not as impressive as in qualifying runs, as Button admitted: "It's true that we do struggle a bit with tyre degradation and that's something we'll have to work on, with Bridgestone, to improve the situation before the Australian Grand Prix."
