Button: “Mercedes one second ahead of everyone in long runs”

Mercedes would have an advantage of around a second over everyone else, according to Jenson Button. The McLaren driver set the second and fifth times in the two sessions on Friday but has no illusions about the real performance of the cars. In free practice 2 the Mercedes of Lewis Hamilton and Nico Rosberg finished ahead of everyone, impressing with their pace in the long runs.

“We're not close to the fastest,” Button said at Albert Park. “We were two seconds slower than Mercedes in testing. Here we are over a second slower than them on long runs. I think everyone is about a second slower than them in race pace. They are very fast."