Jenson Button says McLaren never planned for one pit stop strategy at Spa – Formula 1 news
McLaren driver Jenson Button has said that they never planned for one pit stop strategy in the 2012 Belgian Grand Prix held at Spa-Francorchamps which played an important role in their victory.
Button dominated in the Belgian GP right from the qualifying in which he took his first pole position of the current season and later performed incredibly well in the race and scored his second win.
The British driver said that they were quite unsure about their pit stop strategy before the start of preceding race. Moreover, he said that they made the decision to stick with one pit stop as the race went on, which proved out to be successful in the end
as they managed to maintain their lead.
In addition, he said that he tried very hard to manage the tyres well during the race as the level of degradation was high due to the high speed corners of the circuit.
“We weren't really sure what to do with the strategy, whether it would be a one-stop or a two-stop and whether some people might be doing a three," Button explained. "We were really just playing it by ear and when Nico [Hulkneberg] got in to second it did
help us a little bit because I could just feel the car and not push it that hard, but at that point I still didn't think we'd do a one-stop. But on lap 12 the tyres just started working and it became really good to drive and I could control the degradation
of the tyres.”
Furthermore, he said that he is extremely delighted with his second win of the season while he praised the overall efforts which his team has put in during the last week at Spa.
Currently, the 2009 world champion is standing at 6th position in the drivers’ championship with 101 points. Besides, he is ahead of Nico Rosberg of Mercedes and is behind his teammate, Lewis Hamilton who unfortunately retired in the previous
race due to his accident with Romain Grosjean of Lotus.
It will be interesting to see how the Woking based team shows up in the Italian GP.
Tags: