Button glad to concentrate on setup

Posted on

| Written by

Jenson Button says he is more comfortable in the MP4-25 and has started to make progress on improving the setup of the new McLaren.

Talking to reporters after his second day in the car at Jerez he said the problems with his driving position he experienced at Valencia had been solved:

The cockpit needs to be something you’re comfortable with so we’ve done a lot of work with that. I’m quite a tall driver but I’m fitting in the car well. I’m happy with where I am so now we can concentrate on the setup.

Today’s been very useful for setup, we’ve got a lot of useful information for the future. We have a good base with this car but we still have to work on improving it and that’s what we’re going to do over the next few weeks.
Jenson Button

He said rear tyre wear will be one of the most important areas to develop for the 2010 season:

With a 160-odd [kilo] fuel load people are going to be running at the start of the race it’s important to look after those rear tyres because as soon as you have an issue with the rear with that much fuel on, you can damage them very quickly. I see a lot of people doing long runs on high fuel and I know the reason for it, it’s to see what happens to the rear tyres.

We have done some runs on high fuel to see what’s happening with the tyres and it’s very useful information. Hopefully we’ll get some dry running in the next two days with Lewis and he can feel the effects and they can also improve the car over the next couple of days.
Jenson Button

He’s also been keeping an eye on the opposition including returning champion Michael Schumacher:

Three years away is a long time but I’m sure he hasn’t forgotten how to drive a racing car. He’s proven that he’s been quick in testing and from what I’ve heard his fitness levels are still good. He’ll be a big competitor this year – you can never forget what he’s achieved in the past.
Jenson Button

Button hands over McLaren testing duties to Lewis Hamilton for the next two days.

Author information

Keith Collantine
Lifelong motor sport fan Keith set up RaceFans in 2005 - when it was originally called F1 Fanatic. Having previously worked as a motoring...

Got a potential story, tip or enquiry? Find out more about RaceFans and contact us here.

15 comments on “Button glad to concentrate on setup”

  1. I’d like to see one of these cars break 1.17, that at least will make them faster then last year.

    Hopefully Lewis will be the one to do it, if he gets some dry running.

    I wonder how much those gizmos will help with setup in comparison to development.

    1. lets not forget that the 1.17 was set with a fully developed 2009 car. these 2010 cars are fresh out of the box.

  2. Only 1.20s so far, and that’s probably as fast as it will get in this test.

    I remember that McLaren managed a 1.17 at Jerez during last years testing and look where they were.

    1. Here it is, final day of 2009 testing.

      Kovalainen – McLaren – 1:17.946 – 84 laps

      1. Which part of the refueling ban did you guys not understand? Cars will be heavier this year and times will be slower comparing to last year. Compare to red bull. They didn’t make many changes and yet they are 2 sec behind.

        1. Which part of the refueling ban did you guys not understand?

          I understand it all too well. :)

          1. Yeah, they can still do a qualy simulation

  3. THe cars now have a minimum weight of 620Kg..

    1. Was waiting for someone to remind them of this.

  4. The comment about tyre wear makes me shudder in thought of the daft new tyre rule for qualifying and the race. Pole position used to be an achievement – now it’s almost adisadvantage, the way the rules are set up.

    1. There were times (not that long ago) when drivers had to qualify on different makes of tyre and quite often one was way better than the other. How much of a “disadvantage” must that have been?

      Worse still, they then had to race on them knowing that the car with the other better tyres would slaughter them.

      1. Totally different things. What we have this year is a stupid arbitrary rule. Back then it was about technological innovation.

        1. The last time it was pure low fuel qualifying, am I right in saying that drivers still had to choose what set of tyres they would use for qualifying and the race at the end of practice – ie. harder or softer. Sometimes teams (Jordan tended to do it quite a bit if IIRC) would go for the softer tyre to qualify higher but risk falling back in the race.

          The new rule works on the same principles and will have a minimal effect on the grid – over the last couple of years both tyres have often been very close on perfomance depending on how they’re worked, and a good driver in a well set-up car will be able to qualify just as quickly as someone going for glory on the softer tyre.

        2. No, it was two tyre companies spending vast sums of money on something that went way beyond relevance of anything other than F1.

  5. I would agree that fitting comfortably into ones car is important especially if its for 2 hours of high speed F1 driving…

Comments are closed.