Korean Grand Prix- Friday Practice: Jenson Button calls the day an encouraging one
Jenson Button returns happy from the track after the first two practice sessions of the Korean Grand Prix. Today (Friday) morning marked the first ever formal driving of the Formula One cars on the newly built Korean International Circuit. Now, as the drivers
returned from the track, Button is happy with the McLaren car as well as with the performance of both the team drivers.
Button calls the day an encouraging one, as he is getting ready for a thrilling and exciting round of the season to be held this Sunday, the Korean Grand Prix. The British driver, after completing several laps on the new track, was delighted to state that
he finds the McLaren car far more competitive than it had been in the past few races. The last two rounds, at Italy and later in Singapore, saw poor performance from the McLaren car.
The first practice session of the day saw one of the team drivers, Lewis Hamilton at first place while Button ended at 5th. The second practice saw Hamilton 3rd and Button at 5th slot once again. His MP4-25, although, got
over heated in the second session and he had to go back to the garage a little earlier, still he believes that the car would do quite well on the final race day as well as in the qualifying.
While talking to the media following the practice, the British driver said, “It’s performing pretty well, I’m enjoying the circuit. I felt we got to grips with it pretty quickly – I think it was pretty tricky initially because we had such low grip. We didn’t
get too carried away with trying to change the balance to suit the circuit because it’s changing so quickly, and there’s so much rubber going down.”
The driver added that with every passing lap the car’s performance kept on improving and the second session saw around two and a half to three seconds improvement which is pretty good. He was of the view that the car actually performed well than what he
had expected.
The team has already run its final updates for this race. The last up gradations in the car were expected to take place at the last round in Japan however the team went through a series of mishaps there due to which they could not run the planned tests.
Therefore, these updates were finalized for this race and now the team is happy with the results.
The British driver gladly stated, “We are very strong in the first sector as most people had expected, but also in the other sectors we’re competitive. For me, we’re more competitive here than we have been in the last two races. It’s only Friday, but the
feeling is good.”
The day would have been even better for the driver but at the second session, he faced some problems and had to return to McLaren garage due to which he covered lesser laps than he wanted to. His car was over heated and some quick repairs were done by the
team mechanics but now, he would only be able to check on these at tomorrow’s practice session.
As Button now prepares himself for the third practice and qualifying on Saturday, he declared that the team is keen to finish at the podium. Anything less might be fatal for their survival in the contention.
They also need to stand ahead of the charts’ leader, Mark Webber, who currently stands at the top of Drivers’ Championship. Webber has so far bagged 220 points whereas Button stands 31 points adrift of him with his 189 points.
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