- Russian GP - FP2
Button confident of podium challenge
Jenson Button thinks McLaren can battle for the final podium spot behind Mercedes after an impressive showing in Friday practice for the Russian Grand Prix.
Button and his team-mate Kevin Magnussen exchanged fastest laps with the Mercedes drivers on the prime compound runs in both FP1 and FP2. Button dropped to sixth on his qualifying simulation run, though Magnussen remained second behind Lewis Hamilton, and the 2009 world champion thinks McLaren has every reason to be confident about the rest of the weekend.
Asked if it was a better Friday than usual for McLaren, Button said: "It was. We had good pace… well, reasonable pace. On low fuel, on high fuel, it's definitely better than normal. There's still some work to do, but the prime tyre is very good for me, though I struggled to get the option tyre working. The set-up didn't really suit that tyre, so there's a bit of work to do.
"The long runs seem to be alright, it's not Mercedes pace but it's interesting with everyone else out there. This is a circuit that seems to suit us quite well at the moment."
Despite an encouraging start at the Sochi Autodrom Button is wary of the continued evolution of the circuit, especially after it showed a huge amount of improvement as Friday's sessions continued.
"I think we have improved the set-up in Suzuka and we carried it over a little bit here. [Sochi] does seem to suit us better than normal but this circuit will also change tomorrow and we have to be very careful with that. "We were very quick from the word go on the prime [medium] tyre. On the option [soft] tyre and with low fuel I didn't really have the balance, so hopefully we can improve that tomorrow. We are obviously behind the Mercedes, but we have a chance to fight everyone else this weekend."
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