Question: Jenson, a fighting drive to the podium today after losing a place to Fernando Alonso earlier on.
Jenson Button: Yeah, it was a difficult race for me on the softer of the two tyres. Fernando was very close out of turn five, so I covered the line into six. Normally it’s an easy place to block but I looked at where he was and then when I looked forward again there was lots of debris on the inside. I think it was Michael’s [Schumacher] tyre and a bit of front wing. As soon as I saw that I didn’t want to drive through it. I couldn’t pull to the left because Fernando was already there, so I had to back out of it and just pull in behind Alonso. That was a bit disappointing and a little bit unlucky - but I just didn’t have the pace on the softer of the two tyres. We decided to put the harder tyre on for the last two stints and it worked pretty well for me, especially the last stint where I could hunt down Fernando. Ferrari, I think, struggle on the harder of the two tyres. I was able to make the pass but third was as high as we could get. I was qualifying every lap but I still couldn’t catch Seb.
Question: Jenson, you’re confirmed second place in the Championship, a strong end to a strong season. Where do you and McLaren go from here?
Jenson Button: Into a long winter, ready for next year. I think at this moment in time we shouldn’t think too much about next year this evening. We should celebrate what we’ve done this year. It hasn’t been perfect, no, these guys have been quicker than us, more consistent than us, but all round it’s been a reasonable season. We’ve grown as a team together and I think that we have a very good base going into 2012, so I’d just like to say a big thank you to everyone for 2011, thank you to all the guys involved in the team but also the other guys who’ve surrounded me for the last 12 years of my career. Big thanks to them and bring on 2012.
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Question: Jenson, was it planned that both of you would come in fairly early? You were about the first and second to pit.
Jenson Button: No, I pitted earlier than expected. I really struggled on the tyre that I’ve been struggling with all weekend and strangely, I couldn’t look after the tyre, I really struggled with degradation, especially at the rear end, which was a little bit of a shock. But for me, the problem in the first stint was Fernando, he pushed me very hard, and when someone’s doing that, you have to drive a little bit harder, so I was pushing the tyres pretty hard. And then Fernando got the run on me out of turn five, got alongside me and I picked the wrong line, because that lap is when Michael had his puncture and there was rubber all down the inside (of the track) and I didn’t know what it was, whether it was part of a car, so I couldn’t risk just driving straight through it, and I couldn’t pull to the left because Fernando was there, so I had to back off early and pull in behind. I would say he was gifted the position quite easily. And then I pitted early because I couldn’t look after the tyres, so that was the issue, put a second set on, exactly the same thing happened and then we went to the prime tyre where the pace was much better, the car felt more consistent and the good thing was that we could get a good feeling on that tyre for the last stint, when I stuck on some new primes and I was able to hunt down Fernando. It was definitely the right call. I think we need to look at the reasons why I couldn’t look after that tyre because it’s quite unusual, but all in all, it ended well and I had a lot of fun fighting with Fernando today.
Question: At one point you were on the prime and Lewis was on the option and you were still lapping quicker than he was.
Jenson Button: Yes. I don’t know, I don’t know if it was just our car with that tyre, I don’t know. For me, we made the right call in the end, but we just didn’t have the pace to fight these two today, but I’m happy to be on the podium. It’s nice to get my 12th podium this year. As I said before, it’s been a good year, it’s not been a perfect year but it’s been a good year and we can really take a lot from this season, a lot of positives, sort out a few little issues that we had with reliability and I think we will be looking pretty good. I think for us the main thing is to have a strong winter - we’re not able to drive the car - but have a strong winter at the factory and come out fighting at the first test not at the first race. But no, a big thank you to the guys. I think we’ve really grown as a team this year, I feel a big part of the family of Vodafone McLaren Mercedes. They might not look like it from the outside but they do have a lot of passion and they will do anything to win.
Question: Do you think that without that stuff with the exhausts at the start of the year, the pre-season where the team needed to revamp the rear part of the car, you should be able to be here still fighting for the Championship - and do you think having the right things in the right place next year, you’ll be able to make a better year and fight Red Bull?
Jenson Button: I don’t think we can take anything away from Seb and Red Bull this year. I think they’ve done a phenomenal job and it’s wrong to say we could have fought them if we had a better winter. We don’t know that. What we do know is that we didn’t have a very good winter. The guys did a great job of turning it around for the first race. Our performance was pretty good but obviously you lose a lot of preparation work in terms of reliability but also in terms of set-up and moving forward in terms of aerodynamics and also the blown diffuser. It wasn’t an easy start of the season but it’s just the way it is. These guys had a better start to the season. For next year? We hope we have a winter, basically, of testing, whereas this winter we didn’t. We didn’t really do any set-up work because of the issues that we had. Hopefully we can start the year off well in testing and not do all of our set-up work at the first race. Actually do something over the winter tests. That’s the aim for 2012. And I hope we can achieve that.
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