Jenson Button of McLaren hails Red Bull as fastest at 2011 Japanese Grand Prix – Formula 1 news
McLaren’s Jenson Button has declared Red Bull as fastest despite him dominating the two Friday’s free practice sessions of the 2011 Japanese Grand Prix.
Button thinks that the RB7 is the fastest car on the circuit right now, and eyes the Milton-Keynes based team as a major threat to them.
The second practice session witnessed the 31-year-old Brit clocking the fastest time. Fernando Alonso from Ferrari was second, and Red Bull Racing’s Sebastian Vettel came third fastest. Vettel was followed by his teammate Mark Webber, who ended at 4th.
Even though the RBR drivers were not as fast as the McLaren driver Button, the latter still thinks that they have a huge competition in front of them for which they need to work really hard. They need to work more on the balance of the car prior to entering
the qualifying session in order to do well, Button said.
They still have a day to work on improving their car and fine tune it to meet the challenge posed to them by their major rivals and do well in the qualifiers and on the raceday.
Button told BBC, “The car feels good around here. I don't really know what to take from today in terms of where we stand, but the car feels pretty good. We tried a couple of different fuel-loads: on heavier fuel, the car feels okay through the high-speed
changes of direction, although there are still some areas to improve - particularly in the long runs. The important thing for us is to get the car sorted and ready to challenge for victory.”
Team Principal Martin Whitmarsh is also very happy to see the way his team performed in the two practice sessions in Suzuka and feels that the progress they have made is due to the exhaustive development program that the team had planned for 2011.
Let’s see how the team performs at the upcoming race at Suzuka on Sunday.
Tags: