Sunday: The podium was not so far for McLaren

Sergio Perez – 9th:

This afternoon, my engineers came up with a great race strategy that allowed me to overtake cars in front of me early in the race. So thank you and well done for that, guys! Unfortunately, towards the end of the race, my tires started to degrade a bit too much, especially on the front left. We therefore thought it was too risky to try to go all the way with that set. Consequently, we didn’t really have any other options but to make an additional pit stop, which made me lose a position.

I still finished ninth, which is two places better than in Melbourne last weekend. I think we can say that we can see the progress that has been made. In Shanghai in two weeks, let’s hope that this upward trend continues.

Jenson Button – retirement:

We had a good race today. From a strategy standpoint, we did everything right. We made our pit stops at the right times and managed our tires exactly as we should have. We would have finished fifth without the problem during the pit stop. Maybe we could have fought for third or fourth place. It’s very disappointing that we couldn’t prove it.

Even at the end, we had a chance to score a point, but unfortunately, I was struggling with my front left tire. It kept locking up, and it was vibrating so much that I think the guys were worried it would damage the front left suspension if I continued.

However, I can say that, apart from the issue in the pits, we did a good job. We improved compared to last week, and the result of these improvements was that we were more competitive here in Malaysia than we were last weekend in Australia. So there are many positives to take away.

Let’s hope that in China in two weeks, we can continue to improve and score a few more points.