Friday: McLaren is looking for a few tenths
McLaren does not seem, for the moment, capable of fighting for the pole but is relying on its race pace and the overtaking opportunities at the Buddh circuit to achieve a good result on Sunday.
Lewis Hamilton – 4th and 6th:
It was a positive day, at least on my side of the garage. The car was relatively good, but managing to extract the full potential of the tires on each lap was not easy. We are not fast enough yet, but the tire management and our pace on long stints seem good. In fact, I was very happy with the long stints. If we keep going in this direction, we should be strong in the race.
I think we are fast enough to qualify 3rd or 4th, but for the pole we will really have to push hard in our development work tonight. It looks like it will be another close race.
Jenson Button – 2nd and 7th:
It wasn’t a perfect day. Our lap times were good in the first session, but we couldn’t get the soft tires to work in Free Practice 2, maybe due to temperature issues. Then I had a gearbox problem during my long stint this afternoon. The team is looking into it right now, hopefully it will be fixed tomorrow.
Nevertheless, I think Lewis’s pace on the long stints is promising. We are still a few tenths behind the fastest cars, but I believe we are more competitive on the long runs than on the short ones, where we clearly struggle to get the tires to work. Fortunately, it’s a good circuit for overtaking, but our objective is always to qualify as high as possible.
