Jenson Button feels confident McLaren are closer to Red Bull this season – Formula 1 news
Jenson Button feels quite confident that McLaren will be closer to Red Bull in the start of the upcoming 2012 Formula 1 season as compared to the start of the last season.
Jenson said that the car has averaged 116-117 laps during three days of second pre-season test at Barcelona and that he felt extremely pleased with the performance of the car that it could complete over 100 laps per day.
Jenson said that it is very good for the team to find time for some set-up work to understand the tyres and enhance the performance of the car in addition to perform some reliability work.
“The tyres might look the same as last year's tyres but there is a very different feeling so it's about understanding them, getting a good feel for them and working out the way forward, not just for tomorrow, but the next test and the first race,” said Button.
During the last season, McLaren had to make many changes in the car to prepare it for the first race and afterwards only played to come up to Red Bull while Sebastian Vettel won the championship.
The testing has proven McLaren’s MP4-27 much more reliable than the last year’s car and Jenson has expressed that he knows that Red Bull will be quick but he believes that McLaren will be closer to it.
“Seb is obviously the favourite, as he should be as he won the last two championships,” Button said. “There have been regulation changes, but still Red Bull will be strong from the word go. But I don't think they will have the advantage they had at the start
of the season last year.”
Jenson said that the update the team has right now is not complete because to increase the downforce is not the only issue. Furthermore, he said that finding the right direction for the first race is very crucial and the update of the next week is quite
important after which the team will start working on balancing the car.
Nevertheless, Jenson believes that the team will convey some significant update to the next pre-season test in order to make the considerable preparations for the upcoming season starting in Melbourne.
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