Button: “Too much understeer in the race in Korea”

Jenson Button did not go beyond fourth place at the Formula 1 Korean GP. Winner at Suzuka, the Englishman was unable to get on the podium at Yeongam, slowed down by excessive understeer of his McLaren.

“I don't think I could have done much more than fourth place today. I suffered from understeer throughout the race, so fourth place reflects the value of the car today,” commented Button.

“On the first lap, I braked at turn 3, but Felipe Massa was on the inside and I got stuck on the outside, so I lost several positions. At the end of the first lap I was sixth but I don't think that first negative lap changed the result much. During the race, I had no front grip at all. I couldn't get into the DRS zone, so it was really difficult to get close to those in front of me without the advantage on the straight. I was passed by Nico Rosberg after my first stop when he extended the braking out of the pits. The exit here is a bit unusual: if you leave the pits behind another car, you'll probably be able to overtake because you'll have the benefit of DRS at Turn 3. But Nico got stuck coming out of the pits and ran wide , so I passed him, he then crossed the DRS line behind me and I was able to use him to pass in the straight. I was able to recover quickly and got close to the fight for second place between Lewis and Mark. But, towards the end of each stint, the front had problems: I couldn't get close in the last sector. I added load to the front during the stops, but I had a lot of understeer so I wasn't able to get close enough to Mark to use DRS. I think I only used DRS twice during the entire race. However, even though this was a bad day it wasn't too bad!".