- Australian GP
Button: 11th a good starting point
Jenson Button hailed McLaren's Australian Grand Prix a step in the right direction despite finishing out of the points and two laps down on Mercedes.
McLaren has endured a torrid start to life with Honda power and qualified on the back row in Melbourne, before Kevin Magnussen's engine failed before the start of the grand prix. Button finished 11th out of 11 finishers as the enormity of the challenge facing McLaren suddenly became obvious in Melbourne.
But with such limited running over the winter and Honda running its power unit 'very conservative' all weekend, Button thinks there are plenty of positives to take to the next race in Malaysia.
"It's quite scary really, isn't it," Button said about being happy with 11th. "Points don't mean anything to us right now, there's so much to achieve and do really before we're major competitive. But yes, a good day for us to get to the end. The longest stint we'd done is 12 laps before this weekend so I think that was pretty impressive [to finish]. We're obviously a long way off but it's a good starting point. There's a lot of fuel saving in the race as well, it was pretty tough for me out there!"
Button had a brief battle with Force India's Sergio Perez but he admitted the team did not come to Australia expecting to challenge anyone for positions.
"I still enjoyed it. I had a little bit of a battle for about 20 laps with Perez, which was quite fun, didn't expect that, and then it was just bringing it home. There's a lot of useful data there that can give us a big step forward in Malaysia.
"I didn't think we'd challenge anyone. I was obviously holding the car behind when Checo was fighting. Watching the other cars through corners and everything there's nothing that stands out - except from the Mercedes and Ferrari - that's a lot stronger than us in corners. Not a bad day really and I think the most important thing was getting to the end for us, that's a big deal and a massive step forward. We had a lot of useful information from the ERS pack and the electronics all worked according to plan. We just need to make a big step forward for the next one but this has helped us a lot."
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