Categories: F1 News, Reports and Race ResultsMcLaren

Button surprised by McLaren qualifying pace

Jenson Button says he is surprised McLaren is so quick over one lap in China but believes race pace will suffer as a result.

The 2009 world champion finished FP2 in tenth place at Shanghai, with team-mate Fernando Alonso 12th as the MP4-30 worked well on the soft tyres. Having been more competitive in race trim in Malaysia, Button says he expects the opposite to be true this weekend following Friday practice.

"It’s a little bit of a surprise, but you know I came into this weekend worried about the front tyres and I now think we’ve gone too far trying to look after them," Button said.

"Even when you change the balance of the car, you still have understeer in the high-speed corners and Turn 1 – its just the way this circuit is, you overheat the surface [of the tyre] and I hurt the rears in doing so. It’s just balance tweaks for tomorrow and Sunday and I think we can find some relatively good time in the long runs."

Button believes the car is strongest on the soft tyre but says McLaren can still make strides with the race pace after being pleased with the improvements brought by Honda.

"I think the McLaren-Honda developments have been a good step forward this weekend and it’s been a real pleasure to drive. Obviously, it’s still a long way off the pace but it’s good progress.

"Power unit is better but there is still a long way to go. Drivability was tricky this morning and we’ve helped it a lot through the weekend. It’s always difficult with different temperatures, different layouts and what have you, but we made a lot of improvements today which is the key thing. Hopefully we get to keep going for tomorrow…"

By Chris Medland in Shanghai

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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.