Missed points opportunity for McLaren

The Marina Bay Circuit’s lack of straights was bound to help McLaren in their bid for a fourth points finish this season. But Jenson Button encountered several issues during the race, including a prolonged pit stop.

“You would not believe the amount of switch changes I had to make. I looked down more than I did up!” Button said, “The safety cars we were very lucky with, both of them. We went very long on our strategy, so it opens you up to safety cars in a good way. First [pit stop] we sat in the pits for 30 seconds trying to get the wheel on. So it didn’t help us but the second one really helped us and the actual pace was good, considering the length of the stints we were doing.”

Button’s hopes for a points finish were dashed when he made contact with Pastor Maldonado’s Lotus at turn 17.

“It was intense behind the two Lotuses and they were unbelievably slow,” he explained, “I hit the back of Maldonado. I sort of expected him to touch the throttle out of the corner and he didn’t, I don’t know what was going on there. Found myself in the back of him.

“But two corners before that I was on the inside of him and he just tried to drive me straight off the circuit. You can’t do that in Formula One, especially around a circuit like this. It’s not the last time he’ll do it.”

Button lost a chunk of his front wing and was forced to pit. He later retired due to a suspected gearbox failure.

“It’s hurting a little bit, and I think it is for the whole team. It’s tough. They’re still doing a mega job, they’re pushing flat out in Woking and also in Sakura, and I won’t stop, it’s just we’re not improving as fast as we’d like.

“This race was a tough one. I think we could have gotten into the points, but every car out there except for the Manors could have gotten into the points if they were lucky today.”

Fernando Alonso was optimistic about the team’s chances this weekend, saying Singapore was their third best chance at points. Ultimately, he also retired with a gearbox failure.

“I think it was an overheating of the gearbox that caused some failure on both cars,” he said, “Definitely not a very good result for us because we both could have been in the points today and we missed this opportunity so hopefully we’ll have another one.

“We were running 9th or 10th. The performance on the supersoft was quite good on our car, so I think that position could be our final position.”

#f1 #F1