McLaren, Button: “A terrible qualifying”

Jenson Button described his qualifying at the Formula 1 Indian GP as "terrible". The Englishman suffered a delay of 7 tenths to take fifth place although he will be able to start from fourth thanks to the penalty of his teammate Lewis Hamilton.

“No, I'm not at all satisfied with the performance of my car” commented Button. “This morning the car was fantastic, the pace was good. This afternoon I simply had no grip, especially with the prime tyres. I wasn't really able to do a clean lap, not even in the soft tire run. The traffic was terrible,” added the McLaren driver.

“At the moment I have to understand why I wasn't able to find a better balance, and then we hope to improve in the race because qualifying was really a disaster” added Button.

“The car was good with a lot of fuel yesterday so I hope we have that balance tomorrow,” he added.

Button's best qualifying time came just as Felipe Massa crashed in the final sector and could therefore be penalised. “He was going into the gravel just as I got there. I saw the tire marks, I saw the smoke and then the yellow flag, but I was already in the yellow flag area so we'll see what happens, but I slowed down."