Button encouraged by first-day pace

Button, who hasn't finished higher than fifth since his Turkish Grand Prix victory four races ago, is hoping that Brawn has rediscovered its early season form over the summer break.

"We've had a reasonably good first day of practice and it's encouraging to see that the car seems to be on the pace again," he said.

"The focus of our programme was on set-up checks and back-to-back evaluations to confirm that the work done back at the factory after our shutdown was in the right direction.

"There is still some work needed on the set-up before qualifying as I'm not completely happy with the balance but all in all the pace of the car seems reasonably good."

Team principal Ross Brawn confirmed that the high track temperature in Valencia suited that natural disposition of the BGP001's tyre management.

"We've had a good start to the weekend today with two strong practice sessions," he said. "The track temperatures are very high here, reaching 50°C this afternoon, so we have been able to manage our tyre temperatures well and not encounter the issues which have hampered our pace at the past few races.

"Both drivers followed very similar programmes as we revisited some set-ups from previous races as test items to increase our understanding of the car's performance."