Button: "The swimming teams will make qualifying more difficult"

While Ferrari and Felipe Massa have expressed their concerns about the fact that Lotus and Virgin were several seconds behind the pace of the others during the winter tests and that the third team, HRT, will only debut on track on Friday in Bahrain with al driving two rookie drivers, Jenson Button played down the possible safety problems that the new F1 teams could cause.

During an interview with the newspaper La Stampa, the 2009 world champion was asked if the new teams could make the sport even more dangerous.

“It's not really a question of danger,” replied the McLaren driver, “but they will make life harder for us during qualifying.

“Maybe it could happen that we are starting a fast lap with little fuel and we find ourselves in front of a Lotus or a Virgin with a full tank and which are lapping 12 seconds slower than us.

“In qualifying, when there will be 24 cars on track, it will be essential to do things in the right way.

“During the races the situation will improve because the difference between first and last will be 3 or 4 seconds,” added the Briton.

Andre' Cotta