The measure of Jenson Button's disappointment with qualifying for the Grand Prix of Europe was clear when he abandoned his final lap in Q1 and radioed the McLaren pit wall to tell them "It's not happening."
As a result, Button failed to make it through to the second round of qualifying for the first time this season, despite having rated highly in all the practice sessions leading into qualifying on Saturday.
"The reaction I had on the radio? I had been seventh and eighth all weekend, so that result was a bit unexpected," he admitted. "I've had a seventh, a ninth and an eighth in practice - and then 19th in qualifying!"
Button wasn't looking for anyone else to take the blame for his failure to get through to Q2. "There was a bit of traffic, there always is, but that shouldn’t be used as an excuse," he said.
"I buggered up really in turn 15 - I locked up the fronts. I haven't locked up fronts really at all this weekend and in qualifying I did, made a mistake in turn 15," he explained. ""We put new brakes on for qualifying but we always do that.
"I ran off the circuit, spun the car round, and in doing so the tyres hit about 170 degrees. I think that puts the tyres as we've seen so far this weekend into a pretty bad place.
"I should have pitted and put new tyres on, but to be fair we thought we had enough of a margin to still do a reasonable lap and get through to Q2 because all weekend we've been reasonably competitive.
"I guess it's because people turn up their engines in qualifying more than what we expected, because the lap I was on where I went off the car felt good, I was pretty happy where I was apart from when I went off."
Button pointed out that because he didn't stop to change his tyres after flat-spotting them, and also by not making it through to Q2, he had saved at least one set of tyres for use in tomorrow's race.
"I had done a donut with those tyres – not ideal – but we didn’t put new tyres so we’ll have some fun tomorrow," he said.
"The track seems all right," he added. "Sunday is a long day, it always is, but if the car is reasonably quick even we can overtake tomorrow, so we’ll give it a go. I was very happy with the car in FP3, so we’ll see."
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