• British Grand Prix

Button confident of home win with updated McLaren

ESPNF1 Staff
July 6, 2010 « Ecclestone already has plans for a second US Grand Prix | »
Jenson Button is confident of victory on home soil © Getty Images
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Jenson Button is confident McLaren's updates will allow him to fight for victory at his home grand prix this weekend.

The MP4-25 will feature a blown diffuser at Silverstone, as McLaren attempts to keep in touch with Red Bull and Ferrari in the development race. Button last won a race in April at the Chinese Grand Prix, but is confident the latest update will put him back in contention for victory at the British round.

"We have some new parts on the car that should lift us a little bit," he said. "We know Ferrari are going to be very, very quick and we think Red Bull also, and Mercedes. But our package will really lift us into a good position where we can fight for a victory this weekend.

"It [the update] is very important for the rest of our season. They don't always work when you put them on the car as we've seen with a couple of the teams in Valencia; you need to work with it. Hopefully we'll get it all right before this weekend - that has to be our aim. You can't hope that it'll just be ok at the next race because you can't give a race away this year."

He said that after seeing the new exhaust and diffuser going through its development stages, he was confident that the changes would result in an improvement.

"I don't want to think about it if it doesn't work, but if it doesn't work I'm sure we'll have something as soon as possible," added Button. "But I never plan for if it doesn't work, because all of the effort that goes into these updates back at the factory - they [the team] wouldn't do it if they didn't think it was going to work. It goes to the wind tunnel, it goes to the simulator and it's tested many times before it gets on to the circuit. There is always fine tuning you need to do over a race weekend, so we're going to have a busy Friday and Saturday I think."

Button has failed to qualify on the front row of the grid all season and admitted it was something he needed to address in order to get on terms in the title race with his team-mate Lewis Hamilton.

"I make life tougher for myself," he admitted. "Starting further back in the race you've got a lot more to do, but especially at circuits where you can't overtake it's very tricky. I've been able to move up the field at the last couple of races but I still need to make life easier for myself and start qualifying further up the grid."

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