Button optimistic about tyre 'gamble'

McLaren driver Button was sixth fastest and said that the tyre choice made sense to him as he had felt less comfortable on the soft rubber in practice.

"I felt better on the prime," he told television reporters. "Obviously when you get more and more soft tyre rubber down, maybe it doesn't work as well, but I was pretty happy.

"It's possibly a gamble. I don't think it's a big one. The soft tyre for us on Friday was a bit difficult to handle, so we'll see what it's like on the prime.

"Everyone else is on the soft tyre and overtaking is always difficult around here, but we'll give it a shot."

However he was slightly frustrated with how qualifying had worked out, as his tactic of trying three flying laps in a single run had not paid off.

"I couldn't find any more with the tyre and I tried to do a third lap, which didn't work," said Button, who moves up to fifth on the grid thanks to his team-mate Lewis Hamilton's penalty.

"Looking at it, we should've just done one lap with the tyre, and then you save six kilos of fuel, which is about 0.2s, so that's a little bit frustrating really.

"But it's not too bad, I'll be starting the race from fifth and on a different strategy to everyone else, so we'll see how it works."