Categories: F1 News, Reports and Race ResultsMcLaren

Button calls for patience with new power unit

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Jenson Button says McLaren and Honda need time to understand where it can get the best performance from its upgraded power unit.

Honda spent three tokens to update its power unit ahead of the Belgian Grand Prix weekend, with both drivers receiving hefty grid penalties in order to use new components. Button says he could feel an improvement during Friday practice, though the car itself needs tweaking.

"Yeah, I think we got a little bit more power, but I don’t know how much yet," Button said. "They’re still going through the data and it’s always tricky here, knowing what downforce level to run. I think I’m out of bed a little bit on that one but hopefully we can put that right tomorrow and we can be a little more competitive."

And Button says McLaren needs to be patient as Honda identifies ways of getting more performance from the update.

"There’s always room for improvement and we’ll make sure we do that tonight. There’s a lot of data to look through – obviously this is a new engine, it’s a fresh engine, it’s a different spec and it’s an improvement, but you don’t know how much until you look at the data and there’s so much data; it’s so complex with F1 cars these days that’ll it take time for us to understand where we are.

"I think, in terms of going quicker tomorrow, we understand what we need to do with the car itself, so that’s the important thing."

Click here for Friday's gallery of the Belgian 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.