• Bahrain Grand Prix Qualifying

Button frustrated with car

Button's car 'didn't feel right' © Sutton Images

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• Race:
• Bahrain Grand Prix

• Championship:
• FIA Formula One World Championship

• Drivers:
• Jenson Button
• |
• Lewis Hamilton

• Teams:
• McLaren

Report - First blood to Vettel | Qualifying gallery

Reigning world champion Jenson Button endured a frustrating start to the defence of his title by finishing a disappointing eighth in qualifying, four places behind team-mate Lewis Hamilton.

"I really struggled with front locking this afternoon - but we cured that problem throughout the sessions," said Button. "I was getting happier with the car throughout each stint, but in Q3 something didn't feel quite right. The engineers are looking at the data to see what it was."

Button also confessed himself surprised with the pace of the cars ahead of him but added that a race distance on heavier fuel loads may well produce a different picture on Sunday.

"It's been a surprise to us to see the pace of the quickest cars. Today, we saw which cars are fast over one lap; tomorrow maybe we'll see a slightly different picture because these cars work very differently on higher fuel-loads. Besides, your strategy isn't decided on the Saturday any more - we'll need to see what the others are doing in the race.

"There'll be a lot of heavy cars going into Turn One tomorrow, but hopefully I'll pick a nice line and get through cleanly. I'm looking forward to the challenge and it's going to be a very different one to what everybody has been used to. It'll be a long race tomorrow."

Much has been made of the forthcoming battle between Button and Lewis Hamilton but the former Brawn driver was happy to see his team-mate further up the grid.

"Lewis is up in fourth which is not such a bad position, but when you look at the difference in lap time to P1 it's massive - over one second - so it's a big surprise.

© ESPN Sports Media Ltd.