Jenson Button: McLaren still has hope despite another disastrous run - Formula 1
McLaren’s Jenson Button has recently stated that McLaren is going to recover from its deficit and since McLaren is one of the top running teams in the sport, Jenson warned against writing off his team this season, keeping in mind that the team had a disastrous
third day of testing, at the final pre-season test session; the session is currently going through it's fourth day.
With just one more day of testing remaining before the season opening grand prix in Australia commences, the 2009 Formula 1 Champion won’t get his hands on the new car until then, since the team has announced that Lewis Hamilton will drive for the team at
the final day of the final pre-season test session.
Button completed only 57 laps mainly because his car had to go through an engine change as a result of which he was forced to stay in the garage wasting some valuable time. McLaren have admitted that the car is going through some major reliability issues.
“As today was my final day of testing, it was disappointing not to be able to put more mileage on the car. But I think we learnt some positive things: today was never about pace, as we weren't running lower fuel-loads, but there is pace in the car - it's
just been masked by reliability issues,” he said.
The team spent most of its time trying to understand their new car MP4-26 more by running “flo-vis paint” on its rear wing and its unusual bubble nose device to measure its progress.
Nevertheless, Jenson Button is confident that the team will improve its new car. The Brit believes the lackluster times and reliability issues are the only problems the team is facing as their new car has a lot of pace.
“Now, I'm looking forward to Melbourne: you can't under-estimate a team as determined as Vodafone McLaren Mercedes: we're all pulling together and we've got some interesting developments in the pipeline,” he added.
The 2011 Formula 1 season is expected to commence in Australia with the first race scheduled for the 27th of March. McLaren, Ferrari, Red Bull Racing Team and Mercedes GP are expected to be the top running teams of the upcoming season.
Mercedes’ Michael Schumacher was able to score the fastest time of the week on the fourth day of the final pre-season test session followed by Fernando Alonso’s Ferrari in second place in the timesheets.
However, the season opening race in Australia will give us a clearer picture of what each team is capable of, as the teams have their own criteria at each day of testing during the pre-season test sessions because of which judging their respective performances
clearly is not possible.
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