Thursday: McLaren feels real progress!
The McLaren drivers have faced tough times at the beginning of the season. But for the past few Grand Prix, things seem to be improving. Button made it into the top 10 each time today, and Pérez came close. These performances are positive and delight the drivers, even though they are aware of having a significant margin for improvement.
Jenson Button – 8th and 8th:
« We had difficulties this morning when the track was still clean. We couldn’t get our tires up to temperature. But I think this affected everyone, not just our car.
Our pace on the long runs seems good, although we are still far from our optimal qualifying pace. In fact, I feel happier with the car we have here than the one we had at the start of the season. There were points that were bad at the beginning of the season that seem much better now, and that’s positive for us.
We didn’t set great times but we are moving in the right direction. And fortunately, we will be able to improve before the qualifications.
Sergio Pérez – 9th and 12th:
« We did a lot of different tests today. Not everything worked: some settings made me uncomfortable in the car, especially in fast corners. So we will revisit this on Saturday’s tests, but from an overall perspective, we are surprised by the car’s behavior, which is very positive.
I hope we can reach Q3 in qualifying. In fact, I think Saturday will be the most important day of the weekend. Everyone will try to keep their tires intact in Q3 to save them for the race. It will surely be a slow race with low tire degradation, so we must give it our all in qualifying.
