Button: MP4-30 has ‘a lot of potential’

Jenson Button says he can tell the McLaren MP4-30 “has got a lot of potential” despite being hit by more reliability issues on Saturday.

McLaren had to adjust its running on Thursday and Friday due to a faulty MGU-K seal, with Fernando Alonso’s 59 laps on day two at the Circuit de Catalunya raising hopes that the team was set for increased mileage. While the same problem resurfaced on day three, limiting Button to 24 laps, Button insists McLaren is set for a strong season with the Honda-powered car.

“We’re not in for another tough season, that’s definitely not the case,” Button said. “But whether we’re ready for the race or not is something I can’t answer right now.

“This is a very different situation from the last two years. The last two years we just weren’t quick enough, whereas now obviously this is all very new for us. It would be a very different situation if this was last year. I don’t think we’d be sat here asking the same questions because most people would be in the same position. Everyone else out there has got so much experience with these power units whereas Honda obviously doesn’t, so it looks worse than it is.

“I would love to be pounding round every day that we drive the car but that’s just not the case right now. There are problems that we need to solve which we will solve and hope that the next test will be a good test for us in terms of mileage so that we feel confident going in to the first race that we can get the best out of what we have and push the car to the limit.

“For us, we’re not going to have a race-winning car at the first race, but we might have one at the last race and I think you’re going to see big improvements from us. I think we’re all quite interested to see what this car can do when we’re at full power and we’ve actually done some set-up work because I think it has got a lot of potential but it’s just very difficult to extract right now.”

Full times and day three as it happened.