Jenson Button had a testing day around the Circuit de Catalunya, and was unable to match the pace of McLaren-Honda team-mate Fernando Alonso in either of the two practice sessions on Friday.
The British driver finished down in nineteenth in opening practice and twelfth in second practice, but Alonso was able to get inside the top ten in both sessions.
After experiencing some issues with his car during the day, Button admits the balance of his car gives him some encouragement, even if the Briton still feels it will be difficult to score points around the Spanish circuit on Sunday.
“I had a pretty average day: FP1 was tough, then we couldn’t get the car out of the garage for the opening part of FP2,” said Button.
“Eventually, however, I got some running under my belt – and our long-run pace didn’t look too bad. The balance came together when we ran the Soft tyre at the end of the day, which was encouraging because I had a big issue with the rear-end feeling like it was ‘floating’. We’re getting there.
“We have upgrades arriving for each race, which is fantastic – but we have to spend a lot of time on Fridays working out whether they work or not. Today was a busy day, but we’ll really be able to focus on performance and qualifying tomorrow.
“This won’t be the easiest race at which to score points, but we’ll do our best.”
