Jenson Button says it’s no surprise that McLaren fill the back row of the Australian Grand Prix grid for Sunday’s race.
The Briton qualified 17th, whilst team-mate Kevin Magnussen was 18th, both were over a seconds off making the cut to progress through to the second stage of qualifying.
With Manor failing to take part due to ongoing issues, they therefore fill the back row of the grid – a result Button actually predicted on Friday.
“This level of performance wasn’t a surprise for us: we knew from winter testing that the pace wasn’t there, so we knew we weren’t going to be competitive here,” he explained on Saturday evening.
Despite this, the 2009 champion remains optimistic for McLaren’s potential later in the year.
“However, there’s a good feeling about the car – I know we’re so far off, but the basic car is there beneath me, and we’re adding to our experience and learning with every lap we do.
“And that’s really impressed me – we’ve gone through our first race weekend together, and we’ve managed to solve each issue that’s confronted us. There’s just a lot of work needed to add power and downforce – but this is an important car for the future of McLaren-Honda.”
He fully expects a difficult race on Sunday and is therefore eyeing to simply finish, rather than score points.
“It’s going to be a really difficult race for us – we haven’t done a race distance yet, and my longest run is 12 laps – but we want to do the best we can because there’s so much learning to be had.”
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