F1: Red Bull Hard To Beat Over One Lap, Says Button

Formula 1

F1: Red Bull Hard To Beat Over One Lap, Says Button

Jenson Button says the consistency of the McLaren is good in Korea...

Adam Cooper | http://www.speedtv.com | Posted October 12, 2012 Yeongam (KOR)

Jenson Button stands by at Korea International Circuit. (Photo: Getty Images)

Jenson Button is optimistic about McLaren’s prospects for the Korean GP weekend, despite Red Bull’s ominously fast pace in FP2.

Button finished the afternoon session in fourth place, but he was almost 0.4s off Sebastian Vettel.

“We’ve made progress definitely from this morning,” he said. “I wasn’t entirely happy. But also this morning was mostly testing new parts, making sure everything was working correctly; it wasn’t about setup work. This afternoon on the low fuel and the high fuel we’ve made good progress. Still not quick enough, but I feel that we’re going in the right direction.”

Button was impressed by the pace of the Red Bulls.

“I think they are going to be very difficult to beat in qualifying,” the McLaren driver said. “They seem to have that strength back. Our race pace today seemed to be competitive. Over one lap we’re still lacking, so it’s an area we need to work on. As I said, the direction that we’ve gone with the car and the adjustments we made are positive, so there’s still more to come.

“At the moment, it doesn’t look like we are as quick as the Red Bulls, but it’s only practice. Our race pace feels good. Forgetting the lap times, our consistency is good.”

Button admitted he hadn’t found the best compromise for the track’s mixed character: “Not yet. If you have a look, we’re very slow in a straight line in sector one, we’re about 8km/h down. It’s a tricky one to know which direction to go with that and how much downforce to run for the rest of the circuit.”

Adam Cooper notched up his 27th season as a racing journalist in 2011. He has written about F1 for SPEED.com since 2005. Follow him on Twitter.