Jenson Button expecting good results in Belgium and Italy
British F1 driver Jenson Button is hopeful that McLaren will have an advantage over the rest of the teams in the coming two races at Spa Francorchamps and Monza but these two races will not be critical for the drivers’ standings.
The reigning world champion claimed on Friday that McLaren is optimistic that the bodywork rules clarification will close the gap amongst the top teams and their package will work much better in Spa and Monza as compared to Hungaroring. The Brit wants the team to regain the momentum that they earlier had in the season. Button added that these two races will not affect the title fight but it will be harder to introduce upgrades to the car at the end of the season. As a result, Button believed that McLaren must win in the next two races.
The British driver is one of the most experienced drivers in the Formula 1 racing with a career spanning over 10 years. Button joined Formula 1 with team Williams and impressed all and sundry with a very consistent performance, scoring 12 points to secure the 8th position in the drivers’ standings in his first season.
The 33-year-old left Williams in 2001 to join Benetton who changed their name to Renault in the following year. Button struggled with Benetton but gained good results with Renault as he finished 7th in the drivers’ standings with 14 points. The current world champion inked a deal with team BAR for the next 3 years and proved that he had the potential to win. After struggling in his first season with the team, Button scored an amazing 3rd place in the drivers’ standings with the help of 10 podiums and 1 pole position with a total tally of 85 points.
Jenson struggled in the year that followed with team BAR as he only scored 37 points to secure the 9th place in the drivers’ standings. However, it was enough to impress team Honda. After singing the deal, Button had a good first season with Honda and scored his first win and 3 podiums with the team to secure the 6th place with 56 points. However, Button luck went dry in 2007 and 2008 when the British had the worst 2 seasons of his career as he scored a disappointing 15th and 18th place respectively in the drivers’ standings.
The 33-year-old left BAR and joined a new team on the grid formed by Ross Brawn by the name of Brawn GP. No one had even dreamt that the British could win the Championship with a team that was on the grid for the first time. Button scored 95 points with the help of 6 wins, 9 podium positions and 4 pole positions that helped Brawn secure the constructors’ title as well. The current world champion is in the 4th spot in the 2010 season, just 14 points behind Mark Webber who is leading the championship.
McLaren believes that they can close the gap in the upcoming races after they witnessed their rivals Red Bull dominate the medium to high downforce circuits. "After a disappointing Hungarian Grand Prix, we are pushing hard to regain the performance relative to our rivals that we had enjoyed earlier this season," said team boss Martin Whitmarsh. He added that the team is quite confident after the upgrades, improving the downforce. Plus, it appears that the package has not delivered its full potential as yet and has more potential. The package particularly provides the drivers with consistent, confidence-delivering platform.
The team was able to carry out some useful evaluation tests during the practice session in Hungary and that provided McLaren with useful data and avenues for experimentation. They will further modify this program in Spa and further experimentation during the practice sessions will provide further information.
"As we've always stated, we believe there are some large areas of performance locked within the car and its recent upgrade, and we are confident that our solid-engineering approach will enable us to fully unlock them sooner rather than later”, said Martin.
Button seems quite excited about their new program along with the upcoming races at Spa and Monza. It will be interesting to see how the new technology improves the cars performance for McLaren.
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