Categories: F1 News, Reports and Race ResultsMcLaren

Button warns against expecting McLaren miracles

Jenson Button says McLaren must keep its expectations realistic at this weekend's Singapore Grand Prix.

McLaren has struggled in recent races, with the high-speed circuits at Spa and Monza emphasising the weaknesses in the Honda power unit. While the team has been targeting Singapore as a circuit which should play in to its hands, Button warns against setting targets which McLaren is unable to achieve.

“There’s always a lot of anticipation in the build-up to this race, and for us it’s no different," Button said. "We’ve had a couple of really challenging races, but we’ve said for a while that some of the circuits we go to towards the end of the season should be a bit better-suited to the stronger elements of our package.

“There’s no denying it’ll be hard work, and we aren’t expecting miracles overnight. But, Singapore is a fantastic circuit, it’s one of the longest races of the season in terms of time, and we quite often we see a Safety Car there. So, anything can happen; we’re hoping to learn a lot about how our car works in this configuration, and take as many positives from the weekend as we can.”

While the Honda power unit has been limiting McLaren's competitiveness, a senior team member told F1i in Italy it only believes the team has the "fourth or fifth" best chassis on the grid.

McLaren currently sits ninth in the constructors' championship and its last points came in Hungary, where Fernando Alonso finished fifth and Button came home ninth.

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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.