Silverstone 'a massive test bed' for McLaren

Jenson Button has described the British Grand Prix as "a massive test bed" for McLaren after struggling on Friday.

Both McLaren drivers were in the bottom six in both FP1 and FP2, with the team having to limit mileage on its power units. While Button also lost out on running due to car changes which took longer than planned,

“I don’t think we’ll be excited about getting in to Q2, just like we won’t be excited if we finish the race, we want obviously a lot more than that," Button said. "Again it’s all about still understanding the package and every time we get out the car we’re talking to Peter Prodromou [chief engineer] about how the car feels in the wind and the different angles of steering and everything.

"So it’s still a massive test bed at the moment, we’re not going to be looking for points this weekend unless something happens overnight, which I’ll be surprised. It’s still a very useful weekend and I want to have a great weekend in front of the home crowd, but that’s always going to be difficult. But they’ve been mega today, very supportive and it’s been a beautiful day for them as well so hopefully this will continue.”

Button did at least see some progress late on Friday following a number of set-up changes which were made to his McLaren.

“Yeah it was a lot better but there’s still a lot of work to do. We’re a long way behind, but there’s some improvements we can make tomorrow, some big changes hopefully with the car. It’s not going to be enough to qualify in to Q3 but we’ll get the best out of what we have.”

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