Jenson Button was at a loss to explain his disappointing performance in Valencia qualifying after he found himself with no front grip on his crucial final run in Q3.
Button ended up in ninth, while team mate Lewis Hamilton jumped up to second on his last lap.
“For Q3 I put a new set of tyres on,” said Jenson. “And as soon as I exited the pits I was like, ‘Wow, I don’t know what’s going on here, I’ve got no front grip at all.’ I don’t understand. It’s frustrating, because I was really happy with the car all day.
“The first run in Q3 I was second quickest on an old set of tyres. You expect to go quicker on a new set, but I didn’t, I just had no front grip, locking up the fronts everywhere, and that’s something we really worked on overnight from yesterday to today and we improved the car a lot, which is really good.
“But you get to Q3, and I’ve suddenly got no front grip at all. It’s difficult to understand where that’s gone. I don’t think it’s a circuit issue, I don’t think it changed that much so it’s difficult to work out why suddenly I didn’t have any front end.”
Button is not very hopeful about being able to make up ground on Sunday.
“It’s going to be difficult, it’s not a place that’s famous for its fantastic overtaking manoeuvres! There’s only one DRS zone as well this year. I think we’re pretty much stuck with what we’ve got at the moment.”
Adam Cooper F1 
I think they should start playing “Get a Grip” in the McLaren garage from now on…
Mean, this type of problema is quite common I think. Back in 2002 Irvinee had the same issue in Indy: things change from FP to qualifying. Funny, innit?
Big fanatico of Jeans-on myself, shame he’s having such a hard time this year. Terrible shame, to quote de la Rosa, who will be my driver of the race, even though I won’t be watching it, live that is, because I’ve got a mighty event to attend but that’s unrelated to this post so I’ll be off. Merci.