Jenson Button: “From fifth on the grid anything can happen…”

Jenson Button says he’s happy with the update package on the McLaren after outqualifying his team mate for the first time since China.

Button will start fifth behind the Red Bulls and Ferraris, and optimistic that the car will have a better race pace than it showed in qualifying.

“It’s been a tough weekend for everyone,” said Button. “The weather’s been pretty bad, and for us Lewis had a crash on Friday. So that limited what we could do in testing on the Friday, because obviously I had to do a lot of the long run work.

“Today the balance to me felt pretty good in qualifying, we eventually got there in the end in Q3 and I felt like it was a good lap. I’m happy that I’m near the front, and I felt like I did a good job in qualifying, but we’re seven-tenths behind the Red Bulls, which is too much.

“We’ve definitely made a step forward, the car feels good around here. Its not enough in qualy spec, and it shows. Hopefully tomorrow we’ll see some more performance in the car.”

Button says he’s not worried about rain on Sunday.

“I’m pretty happy. I wasn’t on Friday morning, the car was very pointy, but we know why that was, and we’ve changed the car to help it now. This morning it was good in the wet conditions, and in the dry, the car feels good.

“We just don’t have the pace of the Red Bull, which is quite worrying really. Hopefully tomorrow we can have a good race. From fifth on the grid, anything can happen.

“The first lap is great round here. It’s a fun circuit to drive on and on the first lap, all hell breaks loose, so hopefully we’ll be in a good place for that tomorrow.”