Question: Jenson, your race was really about being patient and taking your opportunities when they came including the pass on Fernando.
Jenson Button: It is a very difficult race, this type of race, as the tyres are so important. You are never sure if you are looking after the tyres enough or if you are pushing enough. I had (Sebastian) Vettel pushing me for about 20 laps, so close to me when I was trying to look after the tyres. I hit some traffic and I was able to pull a gap on him and then reel in these two. But a great race, a really enjoyable race. It was not just a race about being flat every lap. You had to really think about every situation. If you watch the race certain people were very quick at certain parts of the race. That made it very exciting and it is great to be back up here again. Another one-two for the team. Another one to this guy. I’d rather it was the other way around but I must say the team did a great job this weekend. Lewis put in a phenomenal lap yesterday which I couldn’t touch. But it is great to be here.
Question: Jenson, can you analyse for us what was going on with the tyres today as you had to stop very early on and it seemed everybody was all over the place?
Jenson Button: The first couple of laps I was trying to nurse my tyres. I damaged the rears very quickly. I had a mark on the prime tyres as I was pushing very hard. You do everything. You try and knock the div, you take out front wing but it was still not enough, so on the softer tyre I had to pit very early before these guys. But it actually helped me. It moved me closer to the battle in the front. Then I put on the harder tyre and everything was working really well but still you had to look after that tyre as it was easy to grain. You could see the cars around you when the tyre was working for them and when it wasn’t. It was a fun race and the traffic played a big part as Lewis and Fernando have already said. The problem was we were coming up on cars that were fighting for points. One guy makes a mistake in front and the guy behind wants to challenge him even though there was a blue flag for us, so it was a tough race and fighting through the traffic was important.
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Question: Jenson, fifth early on and you came through and you were being pushed by Sebastian. What sort of race was it for you?
Jenson Button: It was a great race. It was a very enjoyable race. It is pretty tough racing around here anyway. It is very tough on tyres. The start of the race for me I thought I would try and look after the option tyre but it was very difficult with the Red Bulls shoved up behind me on prime tyres. I pitted early as I just thought ‘what’s the point of staying on this tyre.’ I said to the team ‘is there a clear space for me to drop in to’ and they said ‘yes,’ so I pitted early. I came out and it was the right call as I had pulled on these guys a little bit. In that stint the car was working well again looking after the tyres and the fuel. I thought the stint was going to be a lot longer than it was. It was basically just hanging onto these guys and waiting for the next pit stop and try to close in on them. It wasn’t to be. I got traffic which slowed me down but then the last stint again just looking after the tyres as it was such a long stint. It was longer than I expected. I had Sebastian up behind me pushing me very hard. I didn’t want to go any quicker as I knew I would damage the tyres and then when we hit traffic I made some good passes in traffic and pulled a five second gap on him and then I could focus my attention on catching up with Fernando. It was a really fun race. It is very difficult to judge when to push on the tyres. I think I kicked in a little bit early on the last stint but it got me P2, so I am very happy with that. I have got to say a big thank you to the whole team. They have done a fabulous job this weekend. This guy was phenomenal in qualifying yesterday. I couldn’t touch him, but it is good to finish close in the race and good to get some points.
Question: I believe you had a different race engineer for various reasons?
Jenson Button: Yeah, Jakob (Andreason) is poorly this weekend which is a shame. He did all the set-up work initially, so some of this result is down to him for sure. It is very difficult watching it on television. But today I had Phil Prew, who is the chief engineer who has worked with Lewis over the last few years. It was good and it is always interesting working with new people, new ideas, but I hope Jakob is well and hopefully we will see him very soon back at the circuit.
Question: What about the hotter temperatures? The track temperature was about ten degrees higher than we’ve seen so far this weekend.
Jenson Button: Yeah, the option was a little bit better than on Friday. The prime tyre, again, was a touch better but still you couldn’t drive flat out on the prime every lap. You got rear graining as you probably saw with quite a few cars out there. When I lapped Hulkenberg, his rear tyres were shredded to bits. You still have to look after that. So it was an exciting race from that point of view. It was great to be up at the front, and watching the fight between these two was also fun and I think that for the viewers this was a great race. It comes down to the tyres being a little bit more difficult than normal, different pit stop strategies and different tyres to start the race and it’s made for a hell of a race.
Question: Was it a key of the race that the harder tyre gave more problems than expected because the Red Bulls came on in laps 13 and 14 which nobody expected?
Jenson Button: Yeah, maybe they didn’t expect to have any issues at the start of the race. When Webber came past me he was flat out and maybe they just didn’t expect to have issues and that played into our hands, I guess, but even on Friday we were struggling with graining on the prime tyre, so I think we had a good understanding of what would happen with it.
Question: Jenson, the Valencia circuit is also a street circuit and there are some similarities with this one here. Do you predict that you can maybe do a similar race there or will it be different?
Jenson Button: We hope so. It is a similar type of circuit, the asphalt is more abrasive than it is here, it’s very smooth here. It’s going to work the tyres very differently. There are also some high speed corners in Valencia and there aren’t here. So I’m sure we will be competitive, but I don’t think you can forget about Red Bull, Ferrari and maybe Mercedes will have sorted themselves out a little bit by that point. So people are bringing new things to the circuit every race we go to, new parts and if you can’t keep up with that, you drop behind. We’ve just got to hope that every race we go to we are developing and moving forward as much as if not more than everyone else. I’m looking forward – Valencia, I love the circuit, I didn’t have a very good race there last year but it’s a circuit I really enjoy driving and I think this car should work pretty well round there.
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