Saturday: McLaren wants to climb the hierarchy

Sergio Perez – 5th and 8th:

We had a good position this morning, so we were hoping to have a good qualification as well.

It is pleasing for the whole team to have both cars in Q3. However, we were about three-tenths slower than the drivers just ahead of us – and I have no idea where they found those extra tenths because I think we did our maximum today.

Now, we must focus solely on tomorrow. I believe we can gain a few positions on the grid over the guys in front of us today, but it will require creating a good strategy for the race.

Our engineers are talented, so I’m confident we can do it.

Jenson Button – 8th and 9th:

« I wasn’t really expecting more from the car this afternoon, to be honest, and what we showed is pretty good, Checo [Sergio Perez] and I posted quite similar times.

It’s still a bit of a shame, however, because if we hadn’t run in Q3, our medium tires would have been a bit fresher for tomorrow’s race. In any case, winning in the last session wasn’t really our goal. But well, what’s done is done, and we will do our best tomorrow.

I don’t really know where we stand in terms of pace – it will be interesting to find out tomorrow – but the positive point is that I’m on the clean side of the track, which could be an advantage as it’s always a bit chaotic at the first corner here.

Overall, I believe that we can definitely do something from ninth place on the grid. Everyone will generally have the same strategy tomorrow, I would say, so we’ll have to see if we can turn the race to our advantage in another way.

The weather forecasts for tomorrow seem quite variable, too, and things could become very interesting if it rains during the race.