Jenson Button admits that a mistake on the final corner of his qualifying lap cost him valuable time, and lost him a potential fourth place on the second row alongside Lewis Hamilton.
Instead Button will start seventh, and he has two Ferraris and Robert Kubica’s Renault between himself and his team mate. Ironically Hamilton also didn’t get his final lap in after an error of his own.
“Just frustrated really,” said Button. “Qualifying was going really well in Q3. My last lap in Q3 was really good, I was really happy, until the last corner. Then I lost a couple of tenths, locked up and ran wide and lost all the time. The times are so close here in Q3 that it was quite a few places that I lost. Frustrating, but I can’t do anything about it now. We’ve just got to look forward to tomorrow.
“We know we’ve got a quick car, quicker than maybe we expected. I think when you looked at the times this morning there were a lot of competitive cars, competitive teams, but I think we proved today that the car is more competitive than probably most people thought in the pit lane. And we’ve just got to have a good race tomorrow. I need a good start, I’m on the clean side, which is positive, and I think we’ve got to be a little bit aggressive with our strategy.”
Meanwhile team boss Martin Whitmarsh says he was happy to at least have Hamilton in third, given that other teams had updates for this race.”
“I think both guys did a good job,” said Whitmarsh. “They’ve worked hard with their engineers this weekend. A lot of our competitors have come here with really big, comprehensive upgrade packages. It was very easy to panic when we saw their pace.
“They both did a fantastic job to keep their head in the right place, and work hard with their engineers, and pull through. In qualifying you’ve got to push. Both guys made minor errors on their last lap in Q3, and Jenson without that would have been on the second row with Lewis. That’s a shame, and it’s frustrating for Jenson and for us.”
Adam Cooper F1 