• Korean Grand Prix

Button plays down Friday practice advantage

ESPNF1 Staff
October 14, 2011 « Hamilton buoyed by McLaren pace | Vergne not analysing performance »
Jenson Button: "Our car was quick in today's conditions - but it's difficult to say how it will be in the dry" © Getty Images
Enlarge
Related Links

Jenson Button is refusing to read too much into Friday's practice times at the Korean Grand Prix, after McLaren finished the afternoon session 1.8s clear of Sebastian Vettel's Red Bull.

Wet conditions meant drivers struggled for grip throughout, with the fastest times set on intermediate tyres in the afternoon. Button and team-mate Lewis Hamilton exchanged fastest laps with Hamilton coming out on top by 0.104s, while Vettel was their nearest competitor a further 1.714s off the pace.

"Our car was quick in today's conditions - but it's difficult to say how it will be in the dry," Button said. "I hope it'll be the same: it'd be nice to have the same gap back to the cars behind, but that's unlikely.

"We didn't really learn too much today - the humidity was so high that the track never really dried out. It looked like it was going to be dry right at the very end, but you couldn't get any grip from the slicks because you couldn't get any temperature into them.

Button said the hour-long final practice on Saturday morning will be a mad rush in order to gather as much dry weather data as possible before qualifying and the race.

"Over the last few races, we've been getting stronger in qualifying," he added. "I'd love to qualify well here, and I'll definitely be giving it a go, but P3's also going to be very important tomorrow because nobody knows how the cars behave on high fuel and dry tyres. There's a lot more to understand."

© ESPN Sports Media Ltd.
ESPN Staff Close