Button encouraged by late McLaren recovery

Jenson Button says McLaren made progress late on Friday which gives him encouragement for the rest of the Spanish Grand Prix weekend.

With McLaren trialling a number of new parts once again during Friday practice, Button was left frustrated by limited running in the afternoon session as he completed only 20 laps. Emerging late in the session, Button says he found a good balance for the car which should bode well for Saturday and Sunday.

“We had a pretty bad day, FP1 was tough and in FP2 we couldn’t get the car out of the garage for most of the session," Button said. "But eventually we managed to get a bit of running and the long run pace didn’t look too bad. On the soft tyre we actually found a good balance, as we were having issues with the rear tyres floating all day. We’re getting there, so tomorrow will be a lot better.

"In the end today was not too bad, as we found the balance, but until then it had been a pretty bad day in terms of finding the balance. We made some big changes and now the car feels better. We’re a bit behind in the game but we’re getting there.”

While pleased with McLaren's latest upgrades, Button says it still looks like being a challenge to score points in Barcelona.

"Every race is the same, we have a lot of developments and that’s fantastic. We spent a lot of time throughout the day finding out if the new parts work or not, so Friday is always a busy day. Tomorrow we can focus more on qualifying work.

"We want to get into Q3 and then be consistently in there. We want to be consistently in the points, but this is going to be a tough weekend. I don’t think it’s going to be easy to score points, but we’ll do our best."