Jenson Button not expecting to take race fight to Williams's ahead
Saturday 6 September 2014 17:46, UK
McLaren’s best two-car dry-weather qualifying result since 2012 at the Italian GP reflects the concrete progress the former race winners are making, according to team boss Eric Boullier.
Since going three races without scoring a point between Bahrain and Spain in April and May, the Woking outfit have outscored Force India, their rivals for fifth place in the Constructors’ Championship, with Jenson Button finishing sixth last time out at Spa.
Strong top-five pace throughout practice at high-speed Monza was then maintained in qualifying when Kevin Magnussen and Button locked out the third row behind Mercedes and Williams, a combined grid score which represents the team’s best in normal conditions since the 2012 Brazilian GP – their last race victory.
And at the end of the same day in which team CEO Ron Dennis declared "I can absolutely, categorically assure you we are back" following an internal transformation since his return in January, Boullier, while noting the uniqueness of the Monza layout, claimed that progress was genuine and showed McLaren were now successfully upgrading the troublesome MP4-29.
“Not a surprise I think. I don’t want to be arrogant, or look like to be, [but] there is really a lot of work being done in the factory,” he told reporters.
“Yes, it’s true that Monza is a little bit particular but the focus now is on the right numbers and the right place.
“I keep saying every race we bring upgrades, Singapore we have another big one, and hopefully we will be able to keep fighting for fifth and sixth in qualy. As per the 2014 regulations, it’s very restrictive now so to do a better job than the other teams is already in some way an achievement for every team.”
With Force India’s drivers only starting tenth and 13th on Sunday, McLaren look set to open up their current two-point advantage over their rivals in the championship.
Button, beaten to the head of the third row by Magnussen by six hundredths of a second right at the end of qualifying having run ahead of his rookie stable-mate all weekend up until then, concedes that moving forwards to challenge Williams is unlikely on pure performance alone, leaving them to battle with Fernando Alonso and the two Red Bulls behind.
“I know you always want to move forward, but realistically if we were slightly surprised how quick the Williams was compared to us, in terms of laptime, I think we expected to be fighting with the Ferraris and Red Bulls,” Button explained.
“Being fifth and sixth we should be very happy about that because we thought we would be in a scrap with those guys, and we’re just in front. So we did a good job there.
“But to challenge Williams tomorrow is very, very difficult looking at the pace of the long runs. They actually looked the quickest car on Friday. For us, it’s more the challenge with the Ferraris and the Red Bulls because they also seemed pretty competitive yesterday.
“So we have improved the car since yesterday and I think fine-tuning a little bit before tomorrow and hopefully our pace will be good enough to fight for fifth and if the guys in front slip up we are capable of taking position.”
Sky F1's coverage of the Italian GP begins at 11.30am on Sunday with the race underway at 1pm
