Saturday: Button and Pérez will aim for points for McLaren

Jenson Button – 13th and 8th:

The car was good today and I think it was a good qualifying session for us. We can still make some progress, but we have worked a lot on the setup this weekend to improve the car and I’m happy with that.

We will see what we can do tomorrow to do our best given our position. It is likely to be an exciting race because the tires are functioning in a very unusual way. As a result, there should be very different strategies, so it will be interesting to see what everyone does.

It’s going to be difficult to overtake the cars ahead of us, but we’ll see what we can do. That being said, I can’t wait to be there. It’s always a tough race here, but that’s why we train.

Sergio Pérez – 7th and 14th:

« It was a disappointing qualifying session for me. I think today we should have been in Q3. In fact, when the track improved in Q2, I wasn’t able to improve my time. The rear felt a bit lazy, and I struggled to maximize the car’s full potential. I think the changes made after free practice 3 didn’t help, and I probably lost a bit. Also, on my out lap, I encountered quite a bit of traffic, which didn’t help either. Losing two-tenths is very easy here—and today that was the case.

So it’s not going to be one of the easiest races for me tomorrow, starting from 14th. It will be difficult for me to overtake, so we need a good strategy and a good pace throughout the race. But all is not lost: we have seen in the past that anything can happen here and there is a big difference between the super softs and the mediums, so we’ll see what effect that has on strategies. Our goal is obviously to score some points.