Japanese GP: Jenson Button says he was on limit of McLaren's pace
Jenson Button believes his 10th place in qualifying for the Japanese Grand Prix represents the McLaren's maximum potential at Suzuka
Button said he while he was pleased to have made it into Q3, his consistency over qualifying proved he could not have extracted more from his car.
"That's as quick as the car will go; I couldn't go any quicker than that," Button said.
"I did three laps of 1m31.8s, a quarter of a tenth between all of them. That's the limit and I couldn't find anything else out there.
"At least we got the maximum out of it [the car] and I don't think we could have done any more with the set-up.
"It's tough that's only tenth but we are where we are. The car feels good, we're just not quick enough."
Team-mate Sergio Perez, who narrowly missed the Q3 cut, said his crash in Friday practice had put him on the back foot heading into qualifying.
"Obviously with the accident yesterday we lost a lot of track time, so today we had to recover with some set-up changes," he said.
"In the end we missed by just half a tenth - we were extremely close to making Q3.
"Not ideal, but on the other hand I think we're in a good position in tomorrow to score points."
Share Or Save This Story
Silverstone: Circuit of Wales is not viable
Qatar MotoGP: Marquez beats Rossi in action-packed race
Redding: I've got to 'do a Marquez'
Cars and stars from the 2026 Goodwood Members’ Meeting
Button takes Goodwood Members’ Meeting win in E-type Jaguar
“No regrets at all” – Why Button is happy with his decision to retire from racing
Is McLaren now a legitimate threat to Mercedes and Ferrari in F1 2026?
Norris: I was better than Piastri in every sense in battle for Hungarian GP victory
Why Hungarian GP pole position was an ‘overachievement" for Norris – and Ferrari still has a better car
Ferrari and Peugeot start testing updated hypercars for WEC 2027
The qualities that separate Marquez from his MotoGP rivals
WEC updates 2026 calendar with Barcelona and Monza replacing Middle Eastern rounds
Rovanpera to conduct demo run at WRC Rally Finland
Subscribe and access Autosport.com with your ad-blocker.
From Formula 1 to MotoGP we report straight from the paddock because we love our sport, just like you. In order to keep delivering our expert journalism, our website uses advertising. Still, we want to give you the opportunity to enjoy an ad-free and tracker-free website and to continue using your adblocker.
Top Comments