Jenson Button: “When you’re driving it, it sounds good…”

Jenson Button was upbeat the form of the new McLaren MP4-29 in Jerez today as the silver car finally got out on track.

Button topped the times as the team embarked on a steep learning curve with its new machine, having lost the whole of Tuesday to system gremlins.

“There’s no horrible issues with the car itself, no big issues with the power unit in terms of how it delivers,” said Button. “So the basic car itself is where we want it to be. We always aim to have a good base. The way it’s going to improve throughout the year in how much we’re going to add to this car aerodynamically, and also in development in terms of the engine, is massive, So having a good base is important.

“We did lots of different runs today. We weren’t able to to any long runs just because we had a few little issues. The good thing is that we were able to solve them pretty quickly and get out and put some laps in. I enjoy driving this car.

Regarding the Mercedes V6, he said: “The power unit doesn’t sound as good – it’s a fact. It’s not as exciting to hear from the outside, but when you’re driving it, it sounds good, we’ve got the turbo noise, we’ve got the wastegate noise. It’s actually quite a nice change.

“And the power of the engine is also nice. It’s very torquey. It feels the most powerful engine I’ve driven. It obviously isn’t in terms of outright power, but as a racing driver you feel the torque, you feel the power at low speed. At high speed you don’t feel the difference. It’s coming out of the corners when you have so much torque that it’s exciting. There’s a lot to improve with the car in that area. We have some many tools at our disposal and I know exactly what they are and how we can improve the car. So I’m happy with our pretend day one, if you forget yesterday.”