F1: Button - Car Good But Times Not Important

Formula 1

F1: Button - Car Good But Times Not Important

Jenson Button played down his pace-setting time in Day One of winter testing...

Adam Cooper | http://www.speedtv.com | Posted February 05, 2013 Jerez (ESP)

Jenson Button drives the McLaren MP4-28 during winter testing. (Photo: LAT Photographic)

Jenson Button enjoyed mixed fortunes in Jerez Tuesday, losing a lot of priceless time to a fuel-pump failure but then setting an impressive fastest lap at the end of the day, despite his restricted mileage.

Button did his time on Pirelli’s harder compound in the closing minutes of the session. Despite the McLaren MP4-28 being 0.9s ahead of his nearest rival, he played down the significance.

“It’s been pretty mixed today,” said Button. “The first day of testing there’s so much excitement within the teams and the paddock. For us, it was very short-lived, doing three laps this morning and having a fuel-pump issue. It’s never what you want at the start of a test, but it’s better to have it at the start I guess than the end of a test, so we can solve the issue.

“Got out this afternoon and did basic work for the aero testing, and then we were able to do some runs – not long runs and not short runs either on different tires to just get a feel for the car, and tweak things here and there in terms of feel. So in terms of the feel of the car, it’s a nice starting point, but not the mileage we’d hoped for on the first day of testing.

“In terms of the way the car feels, there’s nothing that stands out as, ‘Wow, there’s something we’ve got to work on there,’ so it’s a good base. I’ve already had the question whether it’s a championship-winning car. Who knows? The important thing is there’s a nice feeling of the car.

“Lap times mean nothing right now; they don’t even mean anything at the last test. It’s when you get to the first race, and we’ll have a very different car then as every team will, and that’s when we really need to show how quick we are. Today’s testing, and everyone’s doing different things. The important thing is the car really does relate to the simulator, and that’s something that’s good.”

Told that Felipe Massa had called his time “incredible,” Button continued to play it down.

“To be honest, I was surprised when I saw it in the dash, but it doesn’t mean anything,” he said. “Some people run less fuel than others, some people run a lot more fuel than others, so who knows.”

Adam Cooper notched up his 28th season as a racing journalist in 2012. He has written about F1 for SPEED.com since 2005. Follow him on Twitter.