Categories: F1 News, Reports and Race ResultsMcLaren

Button encouraged by 'positive improvements' at McLaren

Jenson Button is keen to see how McLaren fares in the Canadian Grand Prix thanks to "positive improvements" the team has made this season.

McLaren scored its first points of the year courtesy of Button's eighth place in Monaco, with the lack of power from the Honda power unit being less of a hinderance around the streets of Monte Carlo. While admitting Canada will be a bigger challenge, Button says the progress made with the power unit could ensure McLaren remains competitive this weekend.

Asked what he is expecting in Montreal, Button replied: “A slightly tougher weekend than Monaco.

"I mean Canada is a great circuit and there’s always a lot of action here, it’s not a predictable race whatsoever. Last year I started the second-to-last lap eighth and finished fourth. I overtook two cars at the hairpin and two cars crashed at Turn 1 on the final lap, so anything can happen and it normally does, so who knows what the weekend is going to throw at us.

"I think we’ve just got to get stuck in, get on with our plan and see where we are. Obviously there are long straights here, I think we’ve made some positive improvements, whether it’s enough or not we’ll have to wait and see.”

With Honda updating its power unit in Canada - something which Button believes is relating to efficiency rather than performance - the 2009 world champion agrees with team-mate Fernando Alonso's call for improved reliability.

“With the issues we’ve had in races, my issues in Bahrain and Fernando’s the last two races, we all want performance but you’ve got to be able to get to the end of the race as well.

"It’s a real balance and a difficult balancing act because we all want to move forward and every race we’re asked questions about ‘Where are you going to end up? How much quicker are you going to be?’ and it’s a tricky one trying to balance it all.”

Click here for technical analysis of the braking challenge at the Canadian Grand Prix

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Andrew Lewin

Andrew first became a fan of Formula 1 during the time when Michael Schumacher and Damon Hill were stepping into the limelight after the era of Alain Prost, Nigel Mansell and Aryton Senna. He's been addicted ever since, and has been writing about the sport now for nearly a quarter of a century for a number of online news sites. He's also written professionally about GP2 (now Formula 2), GP3, IndyCar, World Rally Championship, MotoGP and NASCAR. In his other professional life, Andrew is a freelance writer, social media consultant, web developer/programmer, and digital specialist in the fields of accessibility, usability, IA, online communities and public sector procurement. He worked for many years in magazine production at Bauer Media, and for over a decade he was part of the digital media team at the UK government's communications department. Born and raised in Essex, Andrew currently lives and works in south-west London.