Jenson Button admits he’s disappointed to have endured a disastrous qualifying session in front of his home fans at Silverstone.
The World Champion will start 14th, 10 places behind team mate Lewis Hamilton, having found the car “undriveable” during qualifying.
“I am very disappointed,” said Button. “I wanted to have a good day here in front of the home crowd, and I love driving round here, so it’s frustrating to be so far back. This morning we obviously had a lot of work on, because everything changed from Friday to Saturday with the car.
“But I thought we went through the programme very well with both cars, and I was very happy with the balance. We didn’t actually change anything going into qualifying, because I was happy with the balance.
“As soon as I got into qualifying I just had very low rear grip. I had to dial out a lot of front end, which means taking a lot of front wing out of the car, locking up the diff. And I don’t know where the rear grip went.
“To me it felt I was taking front end out of the car to balance the car, but in truth it felt like I had less downforce than I had this morning. I don’t know why that is, maybe the conditions changed that much. It’s very sad, because I felt confident this morning, and happy with the car.”
Button said he had no regrets about the team’s decision to go back to the old spec, despite the obvious disruption that it caused.
“No, I think it’s the right decision. We had an update package, and in some ways it was positive, and in other ways it needs more work. We ran with the new wing and some other parts which are definitely a benefit. I think the blown diffuser needs a little bit of work, as we’ve found. We understand how it’s working, we have to spend a bit more time with that before we put it on the car for a race.”
Adam Cooper F1 