- McLaren
Button: Nothing wrong with McLaren steering
Jenson Button is convinced there is nothing wrong with the McLaren MP4-30, despite team-mate Fernando Alonso's latest suggestion that a steering problem caused him to crash in pre-season testing.
Alonso had to miss the opening round of the season in Australia due to the concussion he sustained in the accident. He returns to the track this weekend in Malaysia, but in a remarkable press conference laid the blame for the accident on the McLaren's steering, denying it was due to driver error.
None of McLaren's data points towards a car problem and Button, who has seen the steering trace but still decided to raced in Melbourne, does not believe there is an issue.
Asked if he had ever had a problem that could not be traced in his career, Button said: "Maybe in karting. We have a lot of sensors on the car and this team is very experienced in incidents and they, as with every team in Formula One, take every precaution possible in terms of safety.
"It's one of those things, isn't it? But after seeing the data and watching the steering trace, my view hasn't changed from what it had been when I saw the data initially. I feel comfortable getting into the car and driving it."
And Button does not think the team should dwell on the issue ahead of this weekend.
"I think there have been enough days and nights of the team looking through the data, and with everything that we have you see nothing in the data. There is no other way of finding any other information in the data, so everything that is there has been looked at and there is no issue whatsoever. But I obviously wasn't in the car so I don't know how it felt."
Howver, Button said it was understandable for the team and Alonso to look at every possibility.
"For the team and for Fernando - with Fernando being in hospital for three days - it's always going to be an uncomfortable situation. Nobody likes to crash and no team likes to see their driver crash either because they are obviously worried about the driver's health, and they are always looking into what went wrong.
"From my point of view, all I do is look at the data and I see there is nothing wrong with the data, so I drive the car. There's nothing else I can do and there is no other way of me getting information about what actually happened."
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