Jenson Button says McLaren struggled due to poor soft tyre pace in Indian GP – Formula 1 news
McLaren driver Jenson Button has said that they lacked competitiveness in the 2012 Indian Grand Prix as they struggled with their poor pace on the soft Pirelli compound tyres during the start.
Button was overtaken by Fernando Alonso of Ferrari and his teammate, Lewis Hamilton during the start of the preceding race because he lacked pace on soft tyres.
Afterwards, even though he seemed very strong on his hard tyres and set the best time of the race. However, he could only secure fifth place finish and was 26 seconds behind the race winner, Sebastian Vettel of Red Bull Racing who claimed his fourth consecutive
victory after securing the pole position.
The British driver insisted that although he was very fast on the hard tyres but expressed that he had lost some crucial time due to his poor start as a result of which he came fifth in the end.
“I really struggled in the first stint with the soft tyre with rear movement and I was destroying the front tyres so I struggled on it,” Button said. “Then on the harder tyre the balance was good but I lost so much time behind Grosjean that was my race over
really for a better position.”
“The whole last stint the car was good; I think we were consistently quicker than the leaders but we lost so much in the first stint - Lewis and myself - the car just didn't work on that tyre,” he added.
Nevertheless, he said that he is not feeling upset and is very happy with the progress which the team has made in the season until now. Furthermore, he said that the competition was very tight in the last race and he really enjoyed his fight.
In addition, he said that they are targeting to make the significant step-ups and the essential preparations in order to strike back in the Abu Dhabi Grand Prix which is to be held at Yas Marina Circuit this weekend.
It will be very interesting to see how the 2009 world champion performs in the remaining three races of the ongoing season.
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