Saturday: McLaren tried everything
Jenson Button wanted to try his luck at improving his position in Q3 but could not do better than 10th. He will therefore start just ahead of his teammate, Sergio Pérez, who missed out on Q3 by a tenth of a second.
Jenson Button – 7th and 10th
In Q3 at Suzuka, you want to go out there and enjoy yourself, which is exactly what I did. I couldn’t go any faster. I did three laps in Q2 and Q3 that were almost identical. I think tenth place was the best our car allowed us today. There was nothing more to find on track, but it was fun trying to find it!
Regarding tomorrow’s race, I think it will be different from what we have experienced recently because tire degradation is more reasonable here than in previous races. In fact, I think both types work well here.
I really look forward to the race. Hopefully we can make progress and score a decent number of points. It will be tough here but that’s what we love about this sport.
Sergio Perez – 11th and 11th
It’s frustrating to miss Q3 by the smallest of margins. It’s extremely tight: my first set of tires in Q2 were the Options I used in Q1 when we stopped the lap because of the red flag. This means my references for my second run in Q2 weren’t ideal as I didn’t really know the state of the track.
Obviously, yesterday, we lost valuable track time due to the accident. This morning, we spent some time making up for that lost time by changing the settings and learning the track. Missing Q3 by just a tenth isn’t ideal, but on the other hand, I think we’re in a good position to score points tomorrow.
