Jenson Button 8th by saving tires and fuel

The McLarens started in close formation on the grid since Jenson Button was in 12th place, just ahead of his teammate. The Briton managed to take advantage of a very good start, which placed him directly in the points: « I got off to a very good start and gained most of my positions at that moment. »

If the rest of the race was not necessarily fruitful in terms of positions gained, apart from against a struggling Valtteri Bottas towards the end, he was nevertheless busy managing both his tires and fuel: « After that, it was mostly about managing the tires, which degraded faster than we expected. We also had to do quite a bit of fuel saving, especially in the last ten laps. »

The world champion was paying so much attention to these two parameters that his brakes cooled down because he was simply going too slowly. It gave him a cold sweat at the end of the race: « I went off track at the end simply because I was saving so much fuel that when I pressed the brake pedal, they were ice-cold. I wasn’t braking hard enough. »

This says a lot about the state of Formula 1, where drivers are reduced to paying attention to everything except going as fast as possible…

Fernando Alonso said nothing different as he faced the same issues as his teammate, except he wasn’t rewarded with a small point at the end of the race: « It was a very tough race, perhaps one of the toughest of the year, especially at the end when my tires were destroyed, and I had to save fuel. We knew coming here that it might be a difficult weekend. In the end, I lost 10th place at the end of the race. We didn’t score the last point we were hoping for. We weren’t fast enough throughout the race. »

McLaren is thus closing in on Toro Rosso, just two points behind. The priority during the summer break will therefore be to reclaim 6th position in the Constructors’ Championship.