Saturday: Improvements at McLaren
For Jenson Button, things are going in the right direction as he could have finished 6th if he had decided to race in Q3. But he chose not to set a time and is therefore ranked 9th. On the other hand, for his teammate, Sergio Pérez, the qualifications were much more complicated, and he only ranks 13th.
Jenson Button – 11th and 9th
« My lap in Q2 was the best we could do at the moment. In fact, it’s one of the best laps in a long time! I don’t think I missed anything, so I’m very happy with it. From a strategic point of view, we had a tough decision to make in Q3: take the softs, the mediums, or not run at all. My heart told me to go for it, but my head said we shouldn’t. Our pace would have allowed us to qualify 6th, which would have been worth it. But we chose not to set a time, playing cat and mouse with Nico Hülkenberg. However, starting 9th is not too bad since I’m starting from the clean side of the track and I can choose my tires since I didn’t set a time this afternoon. It will be interesting to see how the softs behave at the start of the race, but I think we’ve positioned ourselves in the best possible way for tomorrow. »
Sergio Pérez – 16th and 13th
« It wasn’t a good day for me today and 13th was clearly not what I was hoping for. Jenson did a great lap and I struggled all weekend to follow him, especially this afternoon, where I think I went a bit in the wrong direction. This morning, we had some problems with the car. Maybe we overcompensated for this issue by reverting to our settings, ending up with understeer and difficulties in warming up the tires. It was a difficult afternoon for us, but we can do better tomorrow. I didn’t get the most out of the car today, but it will be interesting to see how the tires perform tomorrow. »
