Tag Archives: Jenson Button

McLaren’s current form was benchmarked again in Malaysia as Jenson Button and Fernando Alonso qualified 17th and 18th.

However Button was adamant that the team is making progress and that the gap to the opposition is closing.

“When you get out of the car and you’re 17th on the grid, obviously you’re disappointed, it’s always the way,” he said. “But you’ve got to look at what we’ve done in terms of progress. It is a lot of progress, tomorrow I think we’ll show that a lot more with the higher fuel runs, I think we’re a lot more competitive with higher fuel.

“We’ve made a massive step with the engine here, I think you’ll probably see that tomorrow in the race in terms of efficiency and fuel usage as well. We were saving crazy amounts of fuel at the first race, up to 20% at one point. It’s going to be a lot easier for us, and I think our pace will show that tomorrow. It’s still going to be tough, but we’re making progress.”

Regarding prospects for the race he said: “Same as always, head down and see where we end up. It’s a lot of data gathering again, but we obviously want to do the best we can as well, already getting onto the back of the cars in front. At the last race I was 38s behind the second to last guy, so if we can get a lot closer than that, we should be happy with progress. It’s only two weeks, there’s no testing in F1, so this is good progress. I hope we continue like this.”

McLaren endured another difficult day in Jerez as the Jenson Button failed to complete a flying lap on his first outing in the MP4-30, but the former World Champion says he’s not concerned about the teething problems with the package.

The car spent most of the day in the garage after running five stop-start laps early in the day, before Jenson re-emerged for a single lap on a damp track at the end of the day.

“It’s nice to be a part of the new era of McLaren-Honda,” he said. “I think it has a very exciting future, but as we all know things take a little bit of time. I feel that the atmosphere in the team is very good, and I when I say team, I mean McLaren-Honda. I think that it’s key for everyone to remember that it’s not McLaren with an engine manufacturer, it is one team, with one goal. It’s a good atmosphere.

“Obviously not the easiest start to the season, but as we know it’s a very complicated power unit. We will get our heads around it, and in terms of the problems we had today we had our head around it and understand the issue, and that’s what the last run of the day was in the wet, to really understand it, and I think we do now, which is good. So we’re hoping for a much more productive day three and day four.”

Button cited Red Bull’s 2014 testing problems as an example of a team turning things around: “You look at where the Red Bull was at the first couple of tests, and even the last test in Bahrain – obviously they got the result taken away from them, but they finished second at the first Grand Prix. So a lot can happen.

“And we always knew the first test was going to be difficult, it always is, it’s not as straightforward as it used to be with sticking an engine in the car and trying to power round. It’s a very complex system, the power unit. We’ve had a few little niggling things that we’ve been able to solve now. As I said tomorrow we’ll see where we stand.”

Jenson Button provided a timely reminder of his ability by taking fourth place at Interlagos as speculation continues about his future.

It’s widely assumed that McLaren won’t have room for Jenson next year, with an Alonso/Magnussen line-up the most favoured combination.

Button ran fifth initially, and moved up when Valtteri Bottas had a problem at the second stops. Team mate Kevin Magnussen finished ninth.

“It was all pretty smooth up until the last pit stop. There was just a bit of miscommunication coming into the pits – the call wasn’t entirely made to come in. It was talked about what would happen if we did stop. It was just a bit of a miscommunication, we were talking over each other at the time. I did one extra lap, which might have cost us a place.

“It was a fun race. Straightline speed was a bit of an issue with the Ferrari, I had a great battle with Kimi. I enjoyed that very much. P4, a shame we couldn’t quite hang onto Massa.

“Judging the race was so tricky with tyres, but I think we did a good job. I pushed really hard on the first stint on the primes when I was up behind Bottas. I destroyed my rears trying to stay with him, but I thought if I could stay in DRS we can gap the guys behind. It was worth it, and it worked in the end. But I had to back off on the next stint to really conserve the tyres.”

Regarding his future he said: “All I can say is I feel I’m doing a good job at the moment. I’ve got nothing to prove. This is what I do, this is what I’ve done for 15 years. I’ll always do my best. Sometimes it obviously isn’t enough, but today it obviously was.

“All you’ve got to do is drive the car as fast as you can, and carry yourself as well as you can, that’s all you can do. The rest isn’t in your hands.”