Jenson Button says he and team-mate Fernando Alonso’s “promising” pace in Belgium last Sunday bodes well for this weekend’s Italian Grand Prix and is a testament to Honda making progress “at every race”.
The Japanese manufacturer introduced a major power unit upgrade at the end of the summer break, spending seven engine development tokens on its internal combustion engine (ICE) with improvements on the turbo and compressor as well.
Button qualified an encouraging ninth at the power-oriented Circuit de Spa-Francorchamps and while the Briton had to retire on the first lap he saw Alonso recover from a lowly grid position all the way up to seventh.
“We were probably better in Spa that most people expected,” Button said. “We were probably running more downforce than other people as well. My race was very short but if you look at Fernando’s race... the actual pace of was good.
“It’s promising coming [to Monza]. These are two difficult circuits for us but we’ve definitely made good progress. Honda have done a great job in bringing the upgrade for Spa. It’s good to see progress at every race we have with Honda, but also with the car.”
Button and Alonso often complained of being sitting ducks on the straight lines last season because of their troublesome power unit. The 2009 world champion admits “there is still a long way to go” before McLaren-Honda is “properly competitive” again but he says the team is much more upbeat before taking on the ultra-fast, power-hungry Monza venue than it was 12 months ago.
“It’s very different now, a very different situation. In terms of the power unit itself, we’ve moved on a lot, but also in terms of deployment, I think we’ve got the best deployment out there.
“I’m much happier coming here, especially after the whole weekend of Spa. It was very positive, the feeling with the car, the feeling of the power unit.
“It’s great to see progress at every grand prix we go to, whether that’s a qualifying map becoming a race map or something completely new.”
Romain Grosjean column: Speed, sponsors and scheduling
2016 Italian Grand Prix preview
Scene at the 2016 Belgian Grand Prix
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