Button is not interested in the Mugello tests
Although he expressed the desire, Lewis Hamilton will definitely not be driving the MP4-27 during the private tests at Mugello, while Jenson Button claims he sees no interest, as far as he is concerned, in participating.
Before the Bahrain Grand Prix, the Vodafone McLaren-Mercedes team had announced that their test drivers, Gary Paffett and Oliver Turvey, would participate in the private tests at Mugello in place of the team’s official drivers. However, in light of the “underperformance” of the Woking team at the Sakhir circuit, Lewis Hamilton expressed, at the beginning of the week, his desire to drive during these tests, held at the Italian Mugello circuit from May 1 to 3: « I need to get back in the car. We must figure out why the tires are degrading so much. If there are other things to try or other ways to understand this, I will be the one to do it, I won’t let anyone else do it [in my place]. »
However, according to the site GPUpdate.net, the McLaren driver was reportedly given a rejection by his team, thereby confirming the presence of Gary Paffett and Oliver Turvey who are expected to share the task equally.
For his part, Jenson Button admits he never intended to drive at Mugello: “The reasons we won’t be there are that we’ve never driven at Mugello before. I don’t really think it will be beneficial because there is no major development to test,” confides the 2009 world champion to the Press Association. “Therefore, for the test drivers, I think it’s good to test the reliability of parts and try very extreme things, but it’s not useful for us [regular drivers] to be there.”
