Button: Positives to be taken from weekend of better than expected performance

Both Jenson Button and Fernando Alonso were surprised by the pace McLaren had around the Yas Marina Circuit. Button made it into Q2 and was even disappointed not to make it into the top 10. Alonso would have joined him, but a puncture on his final Q1 run prevented this.

Button then went on to finish 12th in the race, despite a few dramas on the way. The first was a collision with Valtteri Bottas in the pit lane, whereby the Finn was released from his pit box while Button was approaching his.

“I saw that he was going to get released,” Button said after the race, “obviously not really supposed to considering I’m pulling in, and I was bracing for the hit, and it happened. It disrupted our pit stop quite a bit, and the boys were a bit scared when I came in to the box so we lost a lot of time. And the worst bit for me was the only way we could stay in contention was to stay in the DRS zone, which is the whole game with us this year. I lost that and lost a lot of time because of it.”

The Brit once again took every chance he could to race other cars, despite the car’s lack of straight line performance.

“I overtook Ericsson which was fun, but defending was pretty good, a lot of fun out there, quite aggressive and I actually overtook a Williams, so that was enjoyable. But I think it showed with the Willys, when you watch us, you can just see the strengths and weaknesses of both cars and you would not think I could keep a car behind that is so much quicker in a straight line, but we could so there’s definitely positives to take from that.”

He also acknowledged the uphill challenge the team faces over the winter to resolve its power unit issues. More overall power and longer deployment of the electrical energy are the obvious improvements to be made, but more work on the chassis and aerodynamics is also required.

“As I said yesterday, the car is the best it’s felt all year. That hasn’t changed. We know where our weaknesses are, and we still need to improve the car. It’s still not the quickest car out there, but it’s not bad. As a package we need to improve everywhere, so that’s the aim for the winter. I’m looking forward to it, I think the guys are doing a great job and we’ve just got to keep pushing and be fighting the Willys for a higher position possibly next year.”

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