Button: “Retired while I was pushing hard”

Jenson Button ended the Bahrain GP sadly: a differential failure brought an early end to his race with a few laps to go, even though a puncture had taken the Briton out of the points shortly before.

Overall a bad day for MLaren, who only took home an eighth place with Lewis Hamilton. “I didn't have great balance today: I struggled all afternoon with a lot of oversteer”, Button explained. “We had problems with the front wing throughout the race. However, my final stint was very long, and, if I hadn't had the trouble at the end, I think things could have been very interesting in the final laps. Some drivers had pushed harder at the start of this stint, but I had tried to preserve my tyres.".

Button, however, suffered a puncture just as he was fifth: “Over the last five laps, I started to push quite hard, and overtook Paul Di Resta and Nico Rosberg. But as I braked for the final corner on lap 53, the right front wheel went up in the air and I realized I had a puncture in the left rear tire. So I radioed the team, and we made an emergency pit stop. In the final laps, the car seemed really noisy. I think the initial problem was a broken exhaust, then my puncture, and then a differential failure. The retirement was inevitable: but it was a rather difficult weekend for the whole team", concluded the Briton.

Lorena Bianchi