McLaren, Button: “Many kilometers in the first session, the car seemed good”

It was a very complicated Friday at home McLaren, in fact, the English team had an excellent first session, bringing both cars to the top positions. Competitiveness was high thanks to the pace of the cars with intermediate tyres. In the second session, however, both cars finished outside the top ten (even in the last places) with the team hoping for an improvement in the weather conditions.

Jenson Button – fourth/twenty-second: “The track was very slippery today and we also had aquaplaning on the straights at high speeds which is very strange. Luckily we covered a lot of kilometers in the morning session – and we also thought it was possible to do some runs on the intermediate tyres. We then did a long run with a high fuel load and a single lap with little fuel on board – and on both occasions the car felt good. In the afternoon session we did little as we were waiting for the weather to calm down to go back to testing with the intermediates. This would have allowed us to understand the changes we had made compared to the morning but it wasn't possible. However, we did get a lot of useful information. In fact, in these conditions it would have been nice to have more tires to try - the wet conditions represent an opportunity for us, but also many risks, so we'll see how the rest of the weekend develops. Currently the forecast says the weather will remain unpredictable for the rest of the weekend.”

Sergio Perez – seventh/seventeenth: “It was very difficult to know how our car was performing as I didn't do many laps in either session, and the laps were done in different conditions to our rivals. I'm not completely happy with the setup – but at least by doing a few runs we understood what we can change for tomorrow. If the conditions remain the same tomorrow I think we can take a step forward. If the weather were to be good we know where we are; but if it's rainy we can have a good race. Our forecast tells us that qualifying will be wet and that the race will have a 50% chance of either rain or dry conditions. In any case, you never know what will happen here in Sao Paulo.”

Martin Withmarsh – team principal: “You can't take anything for granted here at Interlagos and in fact today the capricious side of this place was demonstrated, making it unpredictable for both sessions. It's something we expected – and appreciated – from this splendid circuit. We were able to complete a useful number of laps – particularly in this morning's light rain – but we still don't have certain information on our race pace ahead of the Grand Prix. I'm sure our engineers are currently busy analyzing the data from both sessions, and we will take this information to best use it to leave no stone unturned for tomorrow's qualifying.”

Stefano Rifici