Difficult afternoon for Button
The Hungarian qualifying session wasn't exactly a walk in the park for the team that's leading both championships. McLaren's Jenson Button was unable to make it into Q3 and will start from 11th on the grid, team mate Lewis Hamilton will start the race from 5th, behind his biggest rivals for the title.
Lewis Hamilton:
MP4-25A-04
P3 programme
6th 1m21.376s (+1.802s) 17 laps
Qualifying
Q1 8th 1m21.455s (on Primes)
Q2 8th 1m20.877s (on Options)
Q3 5th 1m20.499s (on Options)
“I’m happy with today’s result. I was relieved to get into Q3 – it was very close – and I feel I pulled every last drop out of the car. So I’m satisfied with the job we did today.
“Obviously, we’ll have to work hard again tomorrow – but, all things considered, it’s a good place for us to be starting from tomorrow: it’s on the clean side of the track, which is a positive, and it’s a long haul down to Turn One. So anything’s possible. As I say, I’m quite happy.
“Our car is the best it’s ever been at this circuit. And we’ll stay focused for tomorrow: I need to get as good a start as I’ve been getting for the past few races, stay clean, get around the first corner and keep moving forwards after that.
“It would be great to make up some places off the grid because it’s very hard to overtake around here. But we’ll do the best job we can. I’m ready for it. Bring it on!”
Jenson Button:
MP4-25A-03
P3 programme
9th 1m21.473s (+1.899s) 18 laps
Qualifying
Q1 7th 1m21.422s (on Primes)
Q2 11th 1m21.292s (on Options)
Q3 -
“In practice this morning, the car was working pretty well and I felt quite happy with it. We were still some way off the top two teams, but the overall pace wasn’t too bad.
“This afternoon, I still felt pretty happy on the Prime tyre, and ended Q1 seventh-fastest. But I just couldn’t find a balance on the Option tyre and I struggled for grip with it.
“The good thing is that I’ll be starting on the clean side of the track. Normally, that can make you up a place or two at the start, and there’ll be lots of opportunities into the first corner, which is always exciting here. Plus, I’ve got two new sets of tyres for the race.
“So we can still do a lot from 11th – and I’ll do my very best to pick up some valuable world championship points from there.
“I suppose you could say we’ve just got to be brave tomorrow.”
Martin Whitmarsh, Team principal, Vodafone McLaren Mercedes: “Lewis did a fantastic job to qualify immediately behind the Red Bulls and the Ferraris – and, in fact, had he not lost a little time on the second sector of his best lap, it’s just possible that he may even have been able to pip Felipe [Massa] for fourth.
“Having said that, P5 puts him on the clean side of the track for tomorrow’s race, and you can be well sure he’ll be his usual precise yet aggressive self on the initial run in to Turn One.
“Jenson was unlucky to miss out on getting through to Q3 by just 17 thousandths of a second. With hindsight I think perhaps we didn’t engineer him sufficient opportunity to get to grips with the Option tyre. Even so, he, too, will start on the clean side of the track and will also be attacking tomorrow’s race with a mind to bag as many world championship points as he possibly can.”
