Saturday: the two McLarens on the wrong side of the track

Lewis Hamilton, 4th:

« We will start on the dirty side of the grid, so our biggest challenge will be to get a good start tomorrow. Every year, I have started on the dirty side here! Mercedes GP and Ferrari have regained pace, and it could be difficult to catch up with Mercedes GP as they are very fast on the straights. Red Bull could therefore pull away from us. »

« We don’t have an extra set of new tires for tomorrow, but you never know what the weather will be like. We are definitely in the battle and I will attack every moment, like we did last year. So I will try to get a good start tomorrow. Fingers crossed, we can gain some places that way. I look forward to participating in this Grand Prix. The race is long here and it should be possible to overtake. »

Jenson Button, 6th:

The sixth place is not very good but we can still do better. Mark Webber had a great race starting from 18th in China, so we can certainly have a good race starting from the sixth place. Perhaps I should have done just one stint in Q3 because my second stint was not faster than the first. You tend to lose time if you push too hard with the hard tires. But to be honest, I didn’t really manage to achieve a good balance in qualifying.

«It was difficult to know people’s pace on Friday during free practice because the weather was unpredictable. I was hoping for more for us, but we’ll see what happens. It’s a shame because I’m on the dirty side of the track. A lot can happen at the first corner tomorrow. But we are competitive, we will be in the race tomorrow.»