Jenson Button was disappointed to see a strong result disappear thanks to a strategic error by his McLaren team, saying he “did everything right” in Budapest on Sunday. The Briton had won both previous Hungarian Grands Prix held in wet conditions and led this time out after the first safety car period but his race had already been compromised by the team’s decision to fit intermediates at his first pit stop.
“I’m glad it was an exciting race for the fans, but it was a tough afternoon for us”, he added after finishing tenth. “We didn’t make the right decisions today. The opening laps in the rain were great: I got up into fifth – which wasn’t a bad position for us – but it went downhill from there. As the track started to dry, we thought it was going to rain again – unfortunately, however, we were the only ones thinking that. I feel like I did everything right, and in every track condition, which is why it’s tough – but we win as a team and we lose as a team, and we’ll quickly put this behind us and move on.”
Despite going in an opposite direction to the entire field, Racing Director Eric Boullier felt the mistake was an easy one to make.
“We worked hard to make the most of the tricky conditions at the start of the race – but it didn’t go our way. That’s frustrating, but, equally, that’s racing – it happens sometimes. We made the wrong call, but, in such a topsy-turvy race weather-wise, sometimes there are some very narrow margins involved. If things had panned out differently, we may have had a good afternoon – but we don’t dwell on the maybes. We’ll learn from this experience, and we’ll move on.”
