Jenson Button says his McLaren feels the best it has since the end of the 2014 season.
Improvements in both reliability and performance from Honda have seen McLaren enjoy a more competitive start to 2016 than last season, though Button was unable to finish the last race in Bahrain. FP2 two weeks ago saw Button set the third fastest time and he is taking confidence from the recent performance shown by the MP4-31.
“The problem we had in Bahrain was unfortunate, but we couldn’t really talk on the radio about the issue or stop earlier, because the radio wasn’t working properly," Button said.
"So much has happened in the last 12 months, I can tell you that. The car itself is the best it has felt in 18 months, I really enjoyed driving it in Bahrain. Everything was great except Q2, where we messed with something I can’t tell you about and it was quite annoying.
"The race was going well, I was saving fuel and I think we could have had a good race, so that was positive. Hopefully we’ll be able to show the real pace of the car here but when people make mistakes or there are incidents we’ve got to capitalise on it and we didn’t do that in Bahrain."
With rain forecast for Saturday's qualifying session, Button admits he is hoping for wet weather to mix up the field.
"I think here we have a better chance if it’s mixed conditions as everyone can make mistakes. Strategy wise we’re pretty good at the moment, both in qualifying and the race so we are in good shape."
Romain Grosjean column: A start beyond my craziest dream
Chris Medland's 2016 Chinese Grand Prix preview
PROFILE: Paddy Lowe, the pioneer
Keep up to date with all the F1 news via Facebook and Twitter
