Jenson Button: “Something has to be done…”

Jenson Button has emphasised how frustrated the drivers are about the Pirelli tyre failures at Silverstone – and especially the fact that the problem was not addressed after issues in earlier races.

“If it happens in a low-speed corner it’s bad enough, but it’s happening at 300km\h on the back straight,” said the former World Champion. “It’s very scary. It’s not just scary for the person that is driving the car, it’s very scary for the people driving behind, because the whole tread is coming off the tyre. If that hits you in the head, I don’t know what will happen.

“Something has to be done, and something was supposed to be done two races ago. That was the reason for the change of tyre construction, safety, nothing else.”

Asked what he could do in his GPDA role Button said that it wasn’t up to the drivers to act.

“I shouldn’t need to do anything. It is obvious, the situation, it has been for a few races. We were lucky at the last race, we didn’t have any. We’ve had five here in total, including Checo’s yesterday. There are tyres there, I don’t know how reliable they are, but they’ve been tested, we all know that. So hopefully it will be changed for the next race. But it’s only next weekend.”

Meanwhile Button endured another tough afternoon at his home race, eventually finishing out of the points in 13^th.

“It wasn’t too bad, up until the last safety car we were sixth or seventh or something. I think we’d lucked in a little bit, because cars had pitted. But in that last stint because the tyres were old there wasn’t a lot of tread on them, so getting them up to temperature was impossible, especially for us, we struggle with that anyway.

“I was a sitting duck, really. All the cars were on new tyres, fighting past, and the problem is as soon as you’re off line, that’s it, your tyres are dirty, and it’s even more difficult to get temperature.”