Q & A with Jenson Button

AUTOSPORT heard from him as he prepared for practice in Malaysia.

Q. How sweet was your win in Australia?

Jenson Button: I think for any driver it's nice making a good call. But for me I really love the conditions when it's a little bit tricky on slick tyres. I always feel good in those conditions.

It was the right time for me to pit. I felt that on the wet tyre I was damaging them a lot. Some of it was because the pressures were too high, but some because I think I was being a bit aggressive with it. And I thought I'd change to slicks, because if I destroyed the wet tyres so quickly it must be pretty dry. It was the right time to pit and it worked.

Q. Do you think it's less likely to score back to back wins at this track?

JB: No, I think our car will work better here. It's very important to have good aerodynamics here, but for us aero works very well at high-speed corners. Low-speed is where we need to work. But this circuit should work for us well - I think as well as Melbourne or maybe a bit better. So I'm excited about that.

We have a couple of new things here which will help us. Not a big margin, but something that should help us. For us, our race pace is good. I think in Melbourne, of the people who stayed on one set of tyres, I was pretty much quickest. I think maybe the Red Bull are a tad quicker than us in the race but I don't think the Ferraris are any quicker. I don't know, it's difficult to tell.

But qualifying is an area we need to work on. The good thing here is I think we can really get the tyres working well. In Melbourne I had to do my third timed lap in quali, while I think here should be one timed lap because we've got good temperature.

Q. Are you confident of a step forward in qualifying?

JB: The race is a little bit different. If you look at the qualifying pace we weren't quick enough. We were six tenths off. If we pull back a bit of that here that's a good thing. There's some long straights here and we've got an efficient car. It's got negative points as well but our straightline speed is good, so if we've got reasonably good pace in the race we should be able to overtake.

Q. Can the qualifying issue be solved with the set-up or do you need new bits?

JB: It's just general updates, in every race you try to bring something. I think the balance of the car we can work a little bit more on here. It's not as bumpy as Melbourne so our car should work reasonably well. I'm happy with the direction we've taken.

Q. Were you surprised that nobody followed your tactic in Melbourne?

JB: Michael [Schumacher] did. He came in the next lap.

Q. Two laps, actually.

JB: Oh, really? I thought it was the next lap. I think it was a pretty good thing I went off in the first sector. I didn't do it on purpose but people saw the sector time and thought 'oh, he's made the wrong call'. So it was already too late when they saw me purple in the middle sector to call them in on the next lap. So in a way that was a good thing. But it took them two laps to figure it out and I think I gained 13 seconds, so the only person I could not overtake was Sebastian [Vettel].

Q. Everybody in the winter was saying it was going to be tough for you, but you've already won...

JB: I think the atmosphere in the team is very good. I feel very at home. Obviously a good result helps, but even before the Melbourne result I felt very at home and as if I had been with the team for a long time. The car itself takes a little bit of time to get used to, but I feel good in that area. There's a couple of things we are still working on, but considering that, the performance is reasonably good.

So I'm confident coming here. I'm looking for a good result. We won't know until qualifying really because if we are sixth tenths off in qualifying, it is a big margin. You can find yourself sort of three or four places back on the grid and you have no chance there, so we have to make sure that our qualifying is good.

Q. Was the win a relief?

JB: It wasn't a relief. There was nothing to be relieved from. I'm just starting with a new team and I was pretty happy.

Q. Would you prefer it if it was wet here?

JB: I'd rather it was dry. You can make the right call when it goes from dry to wet, but it can be luck. As you saw last year the Ferraris got it wrong. It's a tricky one to go from dry to wet. I'd rather it was dry. I'd like to see where we are this weekend compared to the Ferraris and the Red Bulls.