Button bemoans brake issues in Q2 exit

Jenson Button rues the brake issues he suffered during qualifying for the Spanish Grand Prix, although the McLaren-Honda driver still managed to make his maiden Q2 appearance of 2015 at Circuit de Barcelona-Catalunya.

Having set the seventh fastest time in Friday’s second free practice and run again on the fringes of the top ten in FP3, the 2009 world champion entered Saturday’s afternoon session with high hopes to reach Q3.

However, Button soon experienced some instability under braking, which mostly materialised in the opening corner. The Briton tried to circumvent the issue on his final Q2 flyer but ended up locking up his tyres instead and had to settle for 14^th.

“It’s really frustrating,” said Button. “We put new brakes on for qualifying. Every time I got to Turn 1, it massively pulled to the left.

“I don’t know what’s going on with (the brakes) but our real big issue is when I hit the pedal, the car is moving all over the place. Certain brakes are higher temperatures than others, that’s normally what happens. It’s very weird.

“And then the last run in quali, they say we need to warm them up in a different way, which is heavy braking. Normally we dab in the brakes all the way round, which I did. It did not pull to the left but I had not warmed the tyres up so I just kept locking the front.

Button will line up alongside team-mate Fernando Alonso on Sunday’s grid and hopes the pace improvement they’ve both shown so far will translate into the Grand Prix.

“I think so,” replied the 35-year-old when asked if he was in better shape for the race.

“Yesterday our pace was OK. Everyone turns their engines up for qualifying and probably have to turn down for the race, We don’t have to, so I’m looking forward to the race tomorrow.”

Click here for Saturday's gallery from the Spanish Grand Prix

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