Jenson Button believes McLaren will perform better at the Canadian Grand Prix than many observers expect thanks to upgrades and the car's characteristics.

Honda is upgrading its turbo while there is also a new fuel from ExxobMobil in Montreal, which should provide additional performance at the Circuit Gilles Villeneuve. With McLaren focusing on making its car aerodynamically efficient in order to compensate for its power unit deficit, Button believes Canada should actually suit it fairly well.

"For big points, I think it’s going to be a while before we’re actually going competitive enough to fight for big points, but we are making good progress," Button said. "People would think that this isn’t a circuit that would suit our car, but it’s going to be alright.

"We’ve come here with some upgrades, which should help us. It’s not big but it should help us. We are very efficient in terms of our car. I know that ExxonMobil had been working very hard with Honda with fuel. We have an upgrade here, which should help in that areas, so, yeah, we’re positive."

Team-mate Fernando Alonso agrees McLaren should be targeting a similar level of performance to recent races having qualified in the top ten on the last two occasions.

"I don’t think we have a specific target to achieve here. We want to do our best and it will be a good test on completely different circuit to Barcelona and Monaco where the power effect is a little bit higher here. Hopefully we can still score points, be in Q3 again for the third consecutive time and these sorts of things will become a normality."

Romain Grosjean column: Racing on two wheels

Chris Medland's 2016 Canadian Grand Prix preview

FEATURE: Six races in - 2015 v 2016 comparisons

Ziv Knoll's Indy 500 diary

Keep up to date with all the F1 news via Facebook and Twitter

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.

Recent Posts

Sebastian Montoya steps up to Formula 2 with Prema

Sebastian Montoya, the 19-year-old son of former Formula 1 star Juan Pablo Montoya, is set…

14 hours ago

Sauber finds its ‘Northern Star’ under Binotto’s leadership

When former Ferrari team principal Mattia Binotto took on the role of Chief Operating Officer…

15 hours ago

Leclerc hails a season ‘without missed opportunities' in 2024

Charles Leclerc concluded the 2024 F1 season with a sense of satisfaction, the Ferrari driver…

17 hours ago

Coulthard sounds alarm over FIA president’s rift with F1 drivers

Former Formula 1 driver David Coulthard has voiced his dismay at FIA president Mohammed Ben…

18 hours ago

The rapid rise and fall of Super Aguri in F1

Super Aguri's application to join Formula 1 became a reality on this day in 2005,…

20 hours ago

Ferrari's 2024 Season: Marked improvement and a fight to the finish

Ferrari roared back into contention in 2024 to deliver their strongest season in years, thanks…

20 hours ago