• Indian Grand Prix - FP2

Button worried by McLaren pace

ESPN Staff
October 26, 2012 « Rosberg not expecting to remain in top four | McLaren race pace a match for Red Bull - Hamilton »
Jenson Button was seventh quickest in FP2 - just 0.05s slower than team-mate Lewis Hamilton © Sutton Images
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Jenson Button admits he is concerned by a lack of grip which is hurting McLaren's overall pace ahead of the Indian Grand Prix.

With Red Bull pair Sebastian Vettel and Mark Webber ending the second session comfortably clear of the rest of the field, Lewis Hamilton had been told over team radio that his high fuel pace was the best during the latter part of FP2. Having not completed a long run himself, however, Button believes Hamilton was slower than McLaren's main rivals.

"I'm not sure our race pace is that good actually," Button said. "If you look at the run - Lewis' run - I think he's about three tenths slower than Sebastian, which isn't where we want to be. So there's still a bit of work to do on that, and over one lap I think there is quite a bit of work to do. I think we're just struggling for general grip, front temperature maybe; that's probably our issue."

Button revealed that his own long run was cut short by a gearbox problem, but confirmed it was not his race gearbox that was being used.

"It was two laps in to my high fuel run, so I only had a few laps on high fuel, and then I had a shifting issue - very strange shifts - and then the car went in to false neutral. So I found a gear and brought it back to the pits and they're looking in to it now but they haven't got the gearbox off the car yet."

When asked where he thought McLaren could target in qualifying, Button warned that even replicated the FP2 result could be difficult.

"There's still a lot of work to do tomorrow. Today we were sixth and seventh, so sixth and seventh I guess! But I'm not sure it's going to be as easy as that tomorrow so there's a lot of work we need to do to get the tyres working."

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