Button cautious in Shanghai
Jenson Button
Jenson Button would like to believe his job has been made that much easier this weekend by Lewis Hamilton’s grid penalty, but he remains doubtful that it has.
Hamilton will drop five places for Sunday’s Chinese Grand Prix from where he qualifies on Saturday at the Shanghai International Circuit due to a gearbox failure.
The team are refusing to divulge the exact nature of the glitch – it was discovered earlier this week – adding to Hamilton’s suggestion after the race in Malaysia that luck is not going his way.
Given McLaren locked out the front row in Australia and Malaysia, with Button lining up behind Hamilton, it now makes the 32-year-old favourite to lead away the field at the start of the race.
However, a cautious Button said: “You’d say it should make life easier for me, but does it? I don’t know. We have to wait and see.
“In a way it does, but then it also throws it up in the air a lot more. It’s a strange one.
“I now don’t know who’ll be alongside me on the front row – if I am on the front row.
“There is also the possibility, if Lewis and I are in different positions on the grid, of running different strategies. Sometimes you don’t want that.
“I know Lewis is very quick around here, and in the last couple of years we have been very close around here in qualifying, and very close in the race.
“It’s always nicer, when you are in a quick car and your team-mate is alongside you, that you have a better understanding of what he is going to do in the race.
“It’s a little easier sometimes.”
Whatever occurs over the weekend, Button is at least hoping the team manage to resolve what is a very rare failure on their car in between races.
“It’s obviously sad for Lewis, and for the whole team as well because it is an issue, and we don’t like having reliability issues,” added the Briton.
“We’ve got to hope it doesn’t happen again, that we can put it behind us.
“The fact it’s happened on his car and not mine is unlucky for him, but if you don’t find the problem and don’t solve it then it could easily happen on my car next time around.”
The problem immediately puts Hamilton on the back foot for a race he has won twice in the last four years.
It also scuppers his hopes of a hat-trick of poles for the first time in his Formula One career.
Although the 27-year-old could qualify on pole, he knows he would then have to start from sixth, providing no issues occur for those ahead of him.
“The team only discovered there was an issue in the last 48 hours or something like that,” said a clearly disappointed Hamilton.
“I don’t know the absolute details as to what has happened, but it means we have to change. That’s racing.”
McLaren will use the old gearbox for tomorrow’s practice sessions before changing it ahead of qualifying on Saturday.
Despite the issue, Hamilton claims it will not make a difference as to how he goes about his strategy for the weekend.
“It doesn’t alter my approach at all. I’ll approach it exactly the same,” added Hamilton.
“I still have to qualify as high as possible, and then in the race, well I won from third last year, so now I just have to win from further back.”
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