Skip to main content

Sign up for free

  • Get quick access to your favorite articles

  • Manage alerts on breaking news and favorite drivers

  • Make your voice heard with article commenting.

Autosport Plus

Discover premium content
Subscribe

Recommended for you

How a record 10th WRC title bid was reignited after Ogier vs Neuville epic

Feature
WRC
Rally Greece
How a record 10th WRC title bid was reignited after Ogier vs Neuville epic

How Lindblad has shown that he's found his feet in F1

Feature
Formula 1
British GP
How Lindblad has shown that he's found his feet in F1

Why Verstappen burst out laughing during British GP simulator runs

Formula 1
Austrian GP
Why Verstappen burst out laughing during British GP simulator runs

Marquez held 'informal talks' with Honda before committing to Ducati

MotoGP
Marquez held 'informal talks' with Honda before committing to Ducati

How Russell resorted to "abnormal" driving style to win F1 Austrian GP

Formula 1
Austrian GP
How Russell resorted to "abnormal" driving style to win F1 Austrian GP

Five things we learned from MotoGP’s action-packed Dutch GP

Feature
MotoGP
Dutch GP
Five things we learned from MotoGP’s action-packed Dutch GP

Austrian Grand Prix Driver Ratings 2026

Formula 1
Austrian GP
Austrian Grand Prix Driver Ratings 2026

Mercedes boss questions Ferrari's "limitless" F1 upgrades amid budget cap era

Formula 1
Austrian GP
Mercedes boss questions Ferrari's "limitless" F1 upgrades amid budget cap era

Button needs 'hell of a race' for title

Jenson Button has admitted he needs to deliver a 'hell of a race' in Brazil on Sunday if he is going to prevent the world championship battle going all the way to the finale in Abu Dhabi

After a disastrous qualifying session at Interlagos, where he failed to make it past Q2 after struggling for pace on wet tyres, Button knows that he will need to go on the attack from his 14th grid slot to have any chance of scoring the points he needs to win the crown here.

"It is going to have to be a hell of a race from me, and I don't want to just be picking up a couple of points," said the deeply disappointed Button about his prospects for Sunday's race.

"I want a much better result than that, so I am going to be fighting tomorrow - as I am sure there will be a couple of other people fighting through the back.

"With the weather I don't know what is going to happen. I would rather it was dry. We have a very good pace in the dry, and there are good possibilities for overtaking so I think it could be a fun race in the dry - and it is a going to be a hell of a race."

Although Button's boss Ross Brawn has said he will not be bothered if the world title battle between his drivers is not resolved until the final race, Button has said there will be little comfort in simply ending Red Bull Racing and Sebastian Vettel's hopes tomorrow.

"You want it done as soon as possible, for sure," he said. "Today was frustrating. We felt we had very good pace in the wet this morning, and also in Q1. So it is just frustrating.

"Yeah, it is difficult to know where the pace went really. And it is the smallest of set-up changes that made a massive difference in qualifying. I suppose you could say it was a slightly wrong call - but when you make a set-up change like we did with the tyre pressures it should not be that big. But we found that it was."

And highlighting the level of frustration he was experiencing, Button said he did not know whether team-mate Rubens Barrichello had run with different tyre pressures to help the Brazilian scrape through Q2.

"I don't know," he said. "You will have to ask the engineers [that]. I haven't asked the question yet, I have been too pissed off to ask any serious questions. But we will run through all the information tonight.

"We've had to do our fuel load so that is what we have been concentrating on most of all, for tomorrow. It could be wet, it could be dry tomorrow. It is a tough one but we have the option to choose fuel loads, and we will see hopefully quite soon what people are running. That is the only positive you can take from starting where we are."

Previous article Brazil Saturday quotes: Ferrari
Next article Q & A with Jenson Button

Top Comments

Latest news