Jenson Button denies reliability issues being the cause of McLaren’s lost title bid – Formula 1 news
McLaren’s Jenson Button has denied that McLaren lost the fight for the championship due the reliability issues the team had to deal with throughout the 2012 F1 season.
“Sometimes you do get failures and you've got to rectify the issue,” Button said. “But the most difficult part for us was before the summer break when we just didn't have the pace. The reason why we were not fighting for the title isn't just the reliability
issues, the pace in that period of time wasn't good enough compared to our competitors.”
The British driver is of the opinion that the reason the reliability issues were publicised more than their lack of pace in the beginning was because they happened at the time when mistakes are more noticeable.
“We have had reliability issues, but when you actually look at it, the problems have all been at weekends,” Button added.
He added that the same car completed 1400 kilometres during the Abu Dhabi Young Drivers test and there was no issue at all so they were just unlucky that the problems had happened at the wrong times.
Reliability issues kept obstructing McLaren’s progress through the season as Lewis Hamilton, who will be joining Mercedes AMG in 2013 F1 season, was seen setting an incredible pace during the qualifiers, especially towards the end of the season, but had
to retire from several races including times when he was comfortably leading the race. On the other hand, Button faced tyre degradation issues which hindered his races in Canada and Monaco. Following the car issues, McLaren lost its chance at the drivers’
championship despite Hamilton’s sheer determination to gain race points and also lost their second place in the constructors’ championship to Ferrari.
Meanwhile, McLaren’s sporting director, Sam Michael, has stated that he expects good results in the coming season based on the fact that the car was in a much better condition at the end of 2012. He had added the team was looking forward to the first Grand
Prix in Australia.
Replacing Hamilton for 2013 is the former Sauber F1 driver, Sergio Perez, while Button will be leading the team.
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