- Bahrain Grand Prix - FP2
Sakhir exposes McLaren's faults - Button
McLaren's Jenson Button is expecting another difficult weekend at the Bahrain Grand Prix after struggling for pace in Friday practice.
Button was 11th fastest and 1.202s off the pace of Kimi Raikkonen's best effort for Lotus and said the characteristics of the Sakhir circuit exposed some of the weaknesses of the McLaren.
"The important thing is that we did a lot of running today, not all of it was good but we tried a few things and it's very difficult to get it set up around here," he said. "I don't think it's any secret that we are pretty weak on traction and lateral-loaded traction. This circuit is tough for us but we'll make the best of it. Today has been pretty tricky."
Button is confident he will have a better set-up for final practice and qualifying.
"You've still got to do the best you can and we want to take away some good points here. It's very difficult to know what to do with set-up. We're trying everything we can and we'll get there in the end but we've been running a lot of things today. It's so difficult with the limited running that you can do with the car, but I have a good feeling already that we will have a set-up that will be more competitive."
Tyre degradation has played a major role in the early races and in Bahrain the softer medium compound is only expected to last 10-15 laps. However, Button there was little the drivers could do to try to protect the tyres from losing performance.
"The long runs are the interesting ones because it's very difficult to know how to look after the tyres," he added. "When you try to look after the tyres you just go slower and you don't help the degradation. It's interesting but there's a lot that we can take away from today to help us tomorrow."