Categories: F1 News, Reports and Race ResultsMcLaren

McLaren realistic despite double points

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Jenson Button says McLaren will not get carried away despite scoring points with both cars in the Hungarian Grand Prix.

Fernando Alonso finished fifth in an incident-filled race, while Button came home ninth after running a long final stint on medium tyres. While pleased with the team's haul, Button says McLaren is aware the race situation played a part in both cars finishing in the top ten.

"At the start of the weekend to get points [was expected], yes, but more at the back end like ninth or tenth like I was," Button said. "Fernando did a good job and the strategy worked for him, putting on the soft tyres in the last stint.

"I think for us as a team it's great to get points going in to the summer break but we're also realistic and I think we understand what was going on in the race; lots of offs and drive-throughs, so that helped us quite a bit. But good to get some points and two cars in the points as well."

And Button is aware the second half of the season will start in tough fashion for McLaren.

"The next two races are going to be very difficult for us. High-speed ... I'm sure there are going to be some penalties as well, so nice to get this before the summer break."

However, the 2009 world champion says it was an exciting race to be a part of even if the closing laps were challenging for him.

"It was fun. I didn't stop for tyres under the safety car whereas pretty much everybody around me did. So it made it very difficult because the tyres were quite old at the end - they were primes and the other guys were on options - so a tough race but enjoyable."

REPORT: Vettel wins chaotic Hungarian Grand Prix from Kvyat

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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.