Jenson Button arrived in Malaysia in a chilled mood on Wednesday morning after an overnight flight from Melbourne, enjoying the fact that as in 2009 he left the first race as World Championship leader.
Button has had a relaxing few days and says that he’s a looking forward to the second race.
“I think we’re pretty focused on this weekend,” he said today. “It was pretty important to relax after the race because it was a great victory for us. I had a nice evening with friends and family as we all know that’s the best way to celebrate a great event.
“And then Monday/Tuesday I spent a couple of days in Melbourne just relaxing and then arrived here yesterday. It’s actually been quite a nice few days. Got here yesterday and thought it was quite important to get used to the humidity, because it’s quite different to Melbourne.
“Yeah, it’s been nice, it always is after winning a grand prix and you’re always very excited about the next grand prix and obviously your aim is to do exactly the same again.”
Button stressed that the two circuits are very different so it’s not easy to make any predictions about what all the drivers regard as a challenging venue.
“It’s so different to last weekend, it’s very fast and flowing, very smooth compared to a street circuit and the tyres. It’s always more difficult for the tyres around here. But obviously we have the hard and the medium compound and they’re both pretty hard compounds, so it shouldn’t be too much of an issue.
“I think it’s just the temperature and the humidity that will be the biggest issue for them. And it’s one of those places where you really don’t know what the weather’s going to do. When I previously won here it was cut short, the race, because of a red flag. That’s the thing here, normally it doesn’t just rain, it chucks it down. So, if it does rain this weekend we hope we can continue racing because it’s a great circuit.”
Button showed a good understanding of the 2012 tyres in Melbourne, particular in his ability to get them up to working temperature, although he played down any advantage.
“I think we all try to do the best job we can with the tyres but personally I don’t feel the tyres were a big issue for anyone in Melbourne. They seemed to be very consistent and we didn’t have degradation like we do at other circuits, like here, so I feel that I had a good balance with the car, I had a lot of confidence in the car and yeah, I think the consistency was pretty good throughout the race.
“Obviously we had the scare with the safety car for us – it’s always tough when you’re leading by ten or eleven seconds, to suddenly find a car right up behind you again. But I think we made good use of the safety car in the end and were able to come home and get a very important victory for the whole team.”
Adam Cooper F1 